


Little Universes

by burningupasun



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Ficlet Collection, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:32:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 30,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3415994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningupasun/pseuds/burningupasun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various short ficlets and one-shots of Bethyl; some completely non-zombie AU, some canon divergence, some occasionally written to fit into canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I'm Sorry

**Author's Note:**

> I post a lot of ficlets and drabbles on my tumblr that never get posted here, mostly because they're not really long enough to be posted as full stories. I've decided that since I really like a lot of them and would like to share them with you all, I'll be collecting them all here and posting them sporadically in between other updates of my fics. I'll make notes at the beginning of each for the general info for each ficlet and if it's set in any specific verse, etc.

  

**Title:** I'm Sorry  
 **Word Count:** 2656  
 **Universe:** Non-Zombie AU.  
 **Rating:** Mature. (Sex mentioned but not really detailed.)  
 **Brief Summary:** After Beth and Daryl have their first fight, Daryl struggles to find a way to apologize to her.  
 **Notes:** This was inspired by the recent Norman Reedus photo, as you can tell by the edited one above. It doesn't have much backstory to their relationship, but it's my attempt at a real-world parallel to their fight/argument scene at the moonshine shack in "Still". Enjoy!

* * *

Daryl hadn’t planned to fight with Beth. Then again he’d never planned to fall for her in the first place so maybe the fact that it had gone all wrong wasn’t so much a surprise, all things considered. The argument- their first big one and a fight, really- had come in the midst of a movie night at Beth’s apartment. He wasn’t even sure what had started it. Probably something to do with the movie Beth had them watching, something sappy and romantic and totally not ‘him’. Only he’d been just as into it as she had been, all caught up in the story and pressing kisses occasionally to her cheek and temple, until she’d said… What had it been? Oh, right. Something like: This was how I always imagined love would be like. 

And then he, like an idiot, had mumbled without thinking: “I ain’t never believed in love.”

And it was true, he didn’t.

Or he hadn’t, anyway.

(Until her.)

But he couldn’t admit that, just like he couldn’t take back the words that had spilled from his lips and the argument that had followed. Just like he couldn’t take back the sight of those tears in her eyes, shimmering against the blue and spilling down the soft apples of her cheeks that just a half hour before he’d been pressing kisses to.

He didn’t even remember half of what had been said except that he’d shouted and she’d shouted and he’d stood his ground despite the fact that his once-shriveled heart was aching in his chest and threatening to break. Yeah he was a fucking coward but he’d stood his ground and shot right back at her: “I ain’t never believed in love, ain’t never got no love from anyone, okay? Love ain’t ever got me shit, it ain’t good for shit.”

And then she’d had her finger in his face, tears streaming down her cheeks as she’d cried out, “That’s bullshit, and you know it!”

"Is that what you think?" His face was inches from hers and he was glaring right down at her, but she didn’t back down even though he could see she was choking on her words and her sorrow.

"That’s what I know,” she breathed right back at him.

His heart had throbbed to the beat of stop, stop, stop, but all he’d been able to do was spit back: “You don’t know nothing.”

”Screw you,” she bit out, fire in her eyes as she got right up in his space like no one ever had before, “I know you feel somethin’ for me, Daryl Dixon, I know it. And you don’t get to treat me like crap just because you’re afraid of that. You just don’t!”

He drew back from the wild thing in front of him, from the fierce angel with a storm in her eyes and words too close to the truth, cutting him like swords. His arms crossed in front of his chest like defensive armor, though they did nothing to protect the ache in his chest as he growled in a broken voice, “I ain’t afraid of nothing.”

“I remember,” Beth breathed back, her eyes searching his as her expression suddenly softened just enough to make him ache a little bit more to stop this and be close to her. “I remember the way you looked at me the first night you stayed here. When you stripped off your shirt and let me see. You were like me, when I showed you my own scars, when I told you about losing my Mama. I know what you’ve been through, Daryl, but I know you, too. I know the way you look at me, the way you hold me, the way you kiss me.” She’d wiped tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and whispered hoarsely, “But god forbid you let anyone get too close, right?”

"Don’t." He’d tensed up the moment she brought up his back, his scars, that night. Not because it brought back bad memories but because it had brought back good ones; the lack of pity in her eyes and the softness of her lips over each of his scars and later with her beneath him and arching up into him, her hands clawing against his back and leaving her own marks behind. The only marks he’d ever wanted and god, somewhere deep down inside he knew she was right. He knew what he felt for her.

But she was right about something else, too. He was scared. Daryl Dixon was fucking terrified; not of the blonde in front of him but of the things he felt for her and the voices that whispered in the back of his mind: not worthy, not worthy, not worthy.

And knowing what he felt only scared him more, and that was why he’d growled out angrily, “You don’t know shit about me and what I’ve been through, okay? You don’t know shit.”

She had flung open the door, choking back sobs as she’d ordered him to leave… and he’d left. He’d left because he didn’t know what else to do. He’d left because if he was unworthy of loving her, then he was certainly unworthy of standing there and begging for her forgiveness, begging her to not hate him for the way he’d hurt her just then.

He knew, he knew that he was unworthy of a girl like Beth Greene.

But that hadn’t stopped him from missing her. It had been two days now and he was pretty sure he’d missed her for every minute of each of them. He’d missed her so much it fucking ached. Like there was something missing inside of him, some goddamn hole that was shaped like the way she fit up against him, a hole that echoed with the sound her laugh or her sweet soft singing, an absence scented with a whiff of apples and a hint of honey. But he didn’t know how to even reach out to her, let alone how to apologize. Dixons didn’t apologize. At least he’d never learned how to; his father didn’t apologize to anyone who the violence he left in his wake and Merle had certainly never done so either.

But that afternoon, sitting in his empty two-room cabin on the outskirts of town, Daryl knew he couldn’t keep this up. Knew he couldn’t keep going without her, knew he had to make it right. He didn’t know how, he just knew he had to. Maybe he was terrified of what he felt, but he was even more afraid of the thought of spending the rest of his life like this, missing her like his lungs might miss air. That and the memory of her tear-strained face was enough to get him off his ass, into his leather jacket, and out to his car. Not even the snow falling unexpectedly from the sky could stop him, rare as it was in Georgia.

* * *

Once back in high school, Beth had thought her heart was broken when she and Jimmy broke up. It had been a mutual decision and yet she’d still cried at the loss, mostly because it felt like the end of some kind of era. The end of something comfortable if not anything with an actual spark.

She’d learned what true heartbreak was after the loss of her mother to cancer. True heartbreak had kept her in bed for weeks, except for the day she’d dragged herself up and sliced her wrist in the bathroom only to be stopped by her older sister… and her own desire to live, in the end.

Her heart felt like that all over again, except this time Beth didn’t give into it. She didn’t give in to the urge to curl up in bed and never leave, just hide under the sheets until she forgot all about Daryl Fucking Dixon and his harsh words and the broken look in his eyes and the fact that despite it all some part of her wanted to find and comfort him. 

Beth wanted to forget so she could stop aching, but it was impossible. And she couldn’t give in. So she dragged herself out of bed each morning and into work at the music center where she currently taught Monday thru Friday. In the mornings it was the ones too young for school, and in the afternoons the older kids, their buses dropping them off after their classes were over for the day. She trudged through it all, strumming her guitar and playing the piano and singing as best she could, despite her heart not being in it; because she was pretty sure her heart was still back at her apartment lying on the floor, smashed into pieces since it had fallen from her chest two nights ago.

By the time the last of the kids left for home, it was six pm. According to Lori, the woman who ran the music center, it had been snowing since almost noon, and Beth really wasn’t looking forward to walking the few blocks back to her place. But she didn’t have a car, and it seemed silly to wait for the bus, and besides, the snow was kinda pretty; or it would have been, if she’d been in a better mood. (The truth was the snow just made her think about Daryl, and some conversation they’d had a few weeks ago about how neither of them had ever gotten to build a snowman.) Shoving aside yet another memory of him, she stepped out of the building and tugged her knit cap down over her hair with a resigned sigh.

And then she looked up and there he was. Daryl, leaning against a snow-covered car right across from the music center. He was wearing a leather jacket that she instantly had mixed feelings about; half of her thinking it was entirely inappropriate for the weather (then again if his was, so was hers) and half of her thinking it was still the sexiest thing she’d ever seen him wear, except for that vest of his. (God, she loved that damn vest.) There was an unlit cigarette perched between his lips and snowflakes clinging to his hair and he was hunched in on himself against the cold as he leaned there, peering up at her hesitantly from under his hair.

For a few moments she just stood there drinking him in, trying to ignore the way her traitorous heard thumped out a beat of Daryl, Daryl, Daryl. Trying to ignore how she wanted to run down these steps and fly right into his arms. Trying to ignore the ache, the longing, the need, the…

He cleared his throat and looked slightly to his left, and Beth’s gaze instinctively shifted with his and finally, she saw it. Written on the snow-covered window by what she could only assume was his own hand were the words: I’m sorry.

Beth’s feet were moving before she realized it, carrying her down the steps and across the walkway towards him steadily, though not running. (Even if a part of her still wanted to.)

She stopped a foot or two from him still drinking him in, drawing in a deep breath that she exhaled in a little cloud in the cold air before she asked, “Sorry for what?”

He blinked at her and for a moment she thought he’d do something Daryl Dixon-ish, like shrug or grunt at her. It was what he usually did, after all. But after a moment he scuffed his foot on the ground and said instead, “For everythin’. For makin’ you cry.” He looked down at the ground for a long moment, and then added lowly, “For lyin’.”

Hope took up root in her chest with a flutter of wings that she couldn’t seem to bind no matter how hard she tried. Beth swallowed hard in a failed attempt to push that fluttering away and asked softly, “Lying about what?”

His mouth opened and closed, reminding her- of all things!- of that silly mounted bass they’d seen in a pawn shop once. (She’d thought it was hysterical, the way it opened it’s mouth and wiggled and sang, and Daryl had tried to act like he found it offensive or something as a hunter or a fishermen, but he’d ended up laughing too and she’d seen the smile on his lips when she joked about buying it for him for Christmas.)

But when Daryl opened his mouth, he didn’t sing. What he did do was even better. He just shrugged simply and casually replied, “About love not bein’ good for shit. ‘Bout it not gettin’ me shit. I lied, cause… it got me you. An’ you… Beth…” He looked up at her from under the fringe of his dark hair and she saw his adam’s apple bob in his throat right before he finished roughly, “You’re the best damn thing I’ve ever had in my life, alright?”

And then she gave in. Then she closed the gap between them and flung her arms around him and the chill in the air was forgotten at the first press of her warm body to his. When his arms wrapped around her in return, Beth leaned up on her toes so her lips could find his ear and murmured in a whisper, “Alright.” And then, with a kiss to the soft spot just beneath his ear lobe, she added, “I love you too, Daryl Dixon.”

They kissed in the snow for what had to have been a good 20 mins, until both of them had it clinging to their hair and their eyelashes and, in Daryl’s case anyway, his beard as well. Only then did he usher her into the car and make the longer drive back to his place instead of hers. (Neither of them spoke about the choice, but Beth was glad it had been made. She didn’t want to go back to her place just yet, filled as it was with the memory of why they’d had to make up like this in the first place.) Despite the care he took on the slick roads, they always managed to be touching each other; her hand on his thigh, his hand laced in hers, her cheek on his shoulder as she tucked herself close.

Back at his place, they were even closer. He had a fire lit to keep the place warm, but when they were naked and tangled in the sheets they didn’t really need the flickering flames. They had each other and the slide of warm skin against warm skin and the heat of their lips pressing together as their bodies moved in perfect unison. They had the warmth of pleasure and tension coiling in their bodies as her legs wrapped around him and their moans mingled in the air. They had the fire that burned through their veins as her hands splayed against his back to dig her nails in deep and his hands gripped her hips hard enough to leave faint bruises behind.

And when they came just a few moments apart, crying out each other’s names into the warm air, Beth was so lost in a haze of pleasure that she thought she was imagining the whispered words against her temple: _Love you, Beth._

She didn’t dare open her eyes as if doing so might make it clear that she was hallucinating it somehow. But then he pressed his lips to her temple and smoothed his hand down her side as he gave a shuddering sigh and she knew. She knew she had heard it. She knew it was real. 

Daryl Dixon loved her. And if he was still afraid, that was okay, because he had her and she wasn’t going anywhere. Because she loved him, too.

And love was good for so many things. It wasn’t shit at all.


	2. For The Love of God, DRIVE!

  

**Title:** For The Love of God, DRIVE!  
 **Word Count:** 1865  
 **Universe:** Non-Zombie AU.  
 **Rating:** Teen (Mentions of violence/cannibalism)  
 **Brief Summary:** Beth finds out her boyfriend Gareth's group of friends is totally not just named the "Cannibals" for fun, and flees by jumping on the back of a random motorcycle.  
 **Notes:** Inspired by a prompt from [justkirstenb](http://justkirstenb.tumblr.com)! The prompt was: "What if Beth was running away from something and she jumped on the back of Daryl's motorcycle and yelled "Sorry but for the love of god DRIVE!"

* * *

Beth rounded the corner and very nearly skidded into the large blue mailbox situated there. It was only a last minute dodge that saved her but unfortunately, a quick dodge wasn’t gonna save her from the far worse fate chasing after her on heavy boots and far sturdier legs. Frantic, her cowboy boots pounding on the pavement, Beth dashed down the sidewalk, all the while straining her ears for the sound of footsteps behind her. 

Her yellow sundress had seemed like a good choice this afternoon when her plan had been to pay her new boyfriend Gareth a visit, but in retrospect she regretted both her choices; the dress, and the visit to the new boyfriend. The dress, because it was now whipping around her legs and making it way harder to run, and the boyfriend because, well—

"Beth! Beth you get back here right now! We have a few things to talk about, and you running isn’t going to solve any of it." 

Oh yes it is! Beth thought fiercely. Because running was gonna save her from ending up like the man she’d just seen at her now ex-boyfriend’s mercy. 

"Beth!" The voice was closer now and she could tell he wasn’t alone. There were several footsteps pounding alone with him but Beth didn’t dare look, didn’t dare waste a second of precious time to glance over her shoulder and see if all the men she’d seen with him down in that basement were chasing her now. She needed a way out, needed an escape. But she’d taken the bus here and there were no cabs in sight and she had no goddamn clue how to hot-wire a car even if she’d had a time— she was a farmer’s daughter, for goodness sake! She could herd cattle like an expert, but hot-wiring a car was far out of her list of abilities. 

There was no way she could outrun them forever, despite the fact that she was quick and agile on her feet. They’d catch up to her, and then…

No. She refused to be caught, she refused to give up!

And then she saw it. Idling at the stop light up ahead; a rumbling black motorcycle. Beth had just enough time to catch sight of the man straddling it; no helmet, long and shaggy dark hair, and… two white angel wings, emblazoned across the back of his vest. Beth was a big believer in fate, and destiny, and signs.

And that right there? That was a sign, clear as day.

So she didn’t think. She just ran, praying her luck would hold and the stoplight wouldn’t turn green; and maybe it was just luck or maybe those wings really were a sign because suddenly she was there and hopping onto the back of the motorcycle without hesitating. “Drive, please drive!”

From in front of her came a rough, rumbling voice, “What the fuck?”

Beth slid her arms around his waist. “Sorry but for the love of god, drive!” She shouted the words over the rumble of the engine and saw the man she’d just hopped up behind turn to look at her, his face pulled into an intense, angry scowl…

…until their eyes met. Blue upon blue and something sizzling between them, sharp-bright like a firecracker sizzling through her veins and whatever it was he must have felt it too because she could see the shift in his eyes and the easing of that grimace. And then his eyes flicked past her to the street and the sidewalk beyond, and he tipped his chin forward in a nod as he asked, “Friends of yours?”

She didn’t have to turn to know who he meant, but she did, and there he was. Gareth, with three of his buddies close behind; one of them trying and failing to conceal the bloody machete hanging low in the hand at his side. Beth’s arms instinctively tightened around the man’s waist and she looked right back into his eyes and breathed out as firmly as she could manage, “No. No they’re really not. Please….” 

One second. That was as long as she saw it for, but it was there; a flash of protectiveness in his eyes that was almost fierce in it’s intensity. Then he just nodded, as if it were simple, and she felt the engine roar as he throttled it. “Hold on tight, girl.”

She already was, but at his words Beth slid her arms even tighter around him and pressed her cheek to the warm leather of his vest just in time for him to race right through the light. It felt like the bike leaped forward and it was all Beth could do not to scream— and then they were flying. At least that was what it felt like to Beth; like they were soaring down the streets with the wind whipping through her hair and tugging at the skirt of her dress and god, if she hadn’t just escaped what she was sure was near-death, she would have laughed at how good it felt. 

Her angel-winged stranger drove until the buildings disappeared behind them, until Beth didn’t even recognize where they were anymore but she could only assume they’d gone far enough so that Gareth and his friends wouldn’t catch her. Only then did the bike coast to a stop on the side of a gravel road lined with woods on either side. The city was far behind them now but Beth didn’t feel afraid anymore. She felt like she’d left everything she needed to be afraid of back there, and here there was only safety and peace, and the silence of the country as the engine cut away. For now, anyway.

Breaking that peaceful silence was her saving angel, turning around on the bike and brushing back his wind-swept hair to raise an eyebrow at her. “Alright. Y’ wanna tell me why I just drove a complete stranger away from what I’m pretty sure was a hipster carryin’ a machete?” 

Beth just blinked at him and replied, “That was my boyfriend. Not the one with the machete, the one leading them anyway.” 

The eyebrow stayed raised. “You got strange taste in men, girl.” 

"Well he’s my ex-boyfriend, now,” Beth said sharply, giving up at her attempt to make her windblown mess of blonde hair any neater. 

"Now that you know he has a friend with a machete?" 

She would have laughed at his dry tone, if it had been any other situation. Even still the corner of her lip turned up as Beth shook her head. “No. Now that I know that The Cannibals, as he calls them, is clearly not just a joking name for his group of friends.”

Still on his bike with his fingers curled around the handlebars, the man gave her a once-over and shook his own head. “Think you lost me, girl. Try again.”

"Okay, how’s this? I put on a nice dress to go visit my boyfriend today, as a surprise. Only when I got there I heard noises down in the basement and went to check, figuring they were playing video games. But they weren’t, nope. They were cutting up a man on a big steel table, and judging by what else I saw down in that basement, it was not the first time." She broke off for just a moment as the images flashed through her mind; a large metal tub, the edges of it coated in blood, walls covered in photographs and maps marked with colorful pins and routes, and a group of men clustered around a metal table, blood spraying across the plastic aprons they wore as they cut into a man’s leg.

Beth shuddered, and her voice trembled as she went on, “So…. So, I’m pretty sure my boyfriend is in some kind of gang and I’m pretty sure the whole Cannibal nickname is not just a joke and I’m also pretty sure that if you hadn’t driven off with me on your bike- thanks, by the way- they’d have caught me and brought me back and I would have definitely found out for sure if that whole Cannibal thing was a joke or not.” 

Beth drew in a deep breath, and flashed him a trembling hint of a smile. “So. How’s that for an explanation?” 

He studied her for a long, drawn-out moment, looking her over from head to toe and back again, and then he replied simply, “Huh.” That was it. Just a ‘huh’ and a nod, and he was climbing off his bike and leaning over to unstrap his bag from the side of it. 

As he slung the strap of it over his shoulder, Beth looked up at him in wide-eyed confusion and blurted out in a voice far higher-pitched than she’d intended, “Huh? What the heck does that mean?!”

To her surprise, he flashed her what she was pretty sure was close to a smirk as he said, “Means my place is right here, through this woods. Means we’re gonna go inside, get y’ somethin’ to drink, and then give my friend a call.” 

Still caught up in a mix of adrenaline and bafflement, Beth followed along after him, rather like a lost puppy trailing after… well, Beth had no idea what this man was. A wild wolf of a man? An angel? 

"Who’s your friend? Who are you?”

He pushed through the brush carefully, revealing a house set back into the woods that Beth hadn’t noticed from the road. She had only a second to take in the simplicity of what looked to be a wooden cabin built perhaps lovingly by hand, when her saving angel replied, “The name’s Daryl Dixon. And my friend’s name is Rick Grimes. Sheriff Grimes. I reckon he’ll be very interested in what you just told me…” He glanced over his shoulder at her and raised his eyebrow. “…girl?” 

It took her one moment and then with a rapid blink of her eyes and a swipe of her tongue across her suddenly dry lips she got out, “Beth. Beth Greene. And… and thank you.” 

"S’nothing," he said with a shrug. "Now c’mon, Greene. Let’s get you somethin’ to drink." 

He said it so simply, but she knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t just nothing. He’d saved her life back there, and she was so impossibly grateful. But there was something else, too. Something more that she was feeling, more than just relief and gratefulness. She felt it again, stirring within her in an echo of that electricity she’d felt when they first made eye contact only this time it came as he held open the door and paused to look back at her and add in a low, rough voice, “I ain’t gonna let no one get you today, okay?” 

Momentarily breathless, all Beth could do was nod and try not to stumble under the feeling of his gaze holding her own. When he finally turned and lead the way into his home, all Beth could think was that this day was turning out to be so far from what she’d expected.

And yet somehow, it wasn’t all so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do take ficlet prompts, btw, this was the result of one! I generally take them on my tumblr ([burningupasun](http://burningupasun.tumblr.com)), though I can't always guarantee they'll get filled, it depends on the day/my mood/the prompt. Hope you liked this one, I may write a follow-up to it someday.


	3. Valentine's Cards and Yellow Daisies

**Title:** Valentine's Cards and Yellow Daisies  
 **Word Count:** 2341  
 **Universe:** Prison-verse.  
 **Rating:** General  
 **Brief Summary:** Beth notices that Daryl always disappears when they celebrate holidays, and she decides to do something about it.  
 **Notes:** Wrote this for Valentine's Day, it's set at the prison, in a non-specific time otherwise.

* * *

There were few things that people in the prison could be certain of; from everyone knowing most of your business, to almost always being over-heard, or the fact that Judith would inevitably cry when you were especially tired. Another of these known quantities was that if the prison was celebrating a holiday, Daryl Dixon would be in a shitty mood. They all knew it and had since the first one. Ever since they'd gotten to the prison and starting tracking the dates again, they'd started celebrating the holidays. At first it took some nudging, but people got more and more into it with each one they did. It should have been a relic of the past- in some ways, it was- and yet they needed it. It made them remember what it was like before, when the world was so comparatively simple that things like this could be celebrated. It made them remember family, and love.

And Daryl Dixon hated it. Apparently, anyway. Everyone knew it, everyone remarked on it and yet, as Beth noticed... no one bothered to ask him why. They saw him slink away, they noted how he hid in his cell or went hunting for the whole day, they joked about it to themselves as if it were something to be joked about and not something worrisome. As if it were just another silly Daryl Dixon thing. But no one asked him why. No one went after him, no one even seemed to wonder if maybe he didn't _want_  to be alone.

It made Beth's heart ache. Funny, she thought, to have your heart ache over a man like that. A man who was gruff and dirty, rough and tumble; a man who would grunt at you most days rather than use words. But he was more than that, she knew that top. She saw the care he had for others, hiding just under the surface. She noticed how he always came back with the things Judith needed, even if he had to hurt himself getting it-- and he had, a few times. She noticed how even if he raised an eyebrow at your request, he'd fight to find you what you needed. He'd never scoff. He'd never laugh you off. (Which was why these days, despite her sister and brother-in-law both being on run teams, Beth always asked Daryl for the little things she needed. She had two gnomes and a white blanket in her cell that were her favorite possessions, and all three came from him.) 

He was a good man. A good brother, to so many in the prison. A hero even, to the people of Woodbury and the others he'd brought in; especially the younger ones.

And yet still no one bothered to be sure he was okay or to find out why he hated holidays so much, or to make sure he didn't have to spend them alone.

When Valentine's Day came around, the prison was filled with even more chatter. Walking the cell blocks, Beth had to dodge kissing and cuddling couples with a smile or a wrinkle of her nose depending on who it was. (Or, in Maggie and Glenn's case, a teasing 'get a cell!' called out as she slipped past them) On the last few runs, Beth had coaxed Daryl into getting construction paper when he could find it. For the kids, she'd said, which was true. A few of the adults had borrowed it, cutting out hearts and giving it to their loved ones. Once the kids had made their Valentines one day in the library with her and Carol, pretty much every room and cell in the prison was decorated with them. Except one. 

There was nothing hanging on the walls of Daryl's cell when Beth came to a stop just outside the door. His cell was the most undecorated of any of them; nothing but his bed, and a table with his crossbow on it and his extra set of clothes folded in the corner with his bag. He was in the bed just then, stretched out on with his legs crossed at the ankle and his hands behind his head, staring up at the top bunk. A fringe of dark hair hung into his eyes and Beth quickly shoved away the unexpectedly image that came into her mind of her reaching out and brushing that hair back.

Instead she leaned lightly against the doorway, and gave him a soft little smile. "Hey." When he looked over at her and gave a grunt of acknowledgement, Beth shifted in place and then added softly, "I brought you something." 

He raised an eyebrow but after a long moment he sat up slowly. Taking that as an invitation Beth stepped inside and pulled her hand from behind her back to stretch it out to him. Clutched gently in her finger was a heart cut out of red construction paper with a black border around it (a second heart, taped to the back). In the center, she'd written with a black marker in her loopy handwriting: _Happy Valentine's Day, Daryl! ~Beth_

At first he just peered down at the heart from a distance and furrowed his brow. "This from one of th' kids?" 

"No." She took a step forward and tilted it up from him. "It's from me." 

That seemed to catch him by surprise. His brows knit together and he leaned back to look up at her, perplexed and gruff, "You askin' me to be your Valentine, girl? Ain't I a bit old for you?"

"No." Beth suddenly blushed. "I mean no, I'm not asking, not no you're too- Oh lord." She took one more step and thrust it at him. "I just... I just wanted you to have something nice, that's all. I know you hate the holidays, and I know you never join any of us for them. I dunno why, but I'm not gonna pry if you don't wanna say. I just... I just noticed that no one ever asks you, or comes after you or anything and... and I just wanted you to have something. That's all. I just thought it would be nice. I know how it feels, you know, cause no one gave me any cards either, except the kids." 

The longer he went without taking it, the more she rambled until finally (with an internal shout of _be quiet, Beth Greene!)_  she cut herself off. The heart was still outstretched towards him and Beth held it there, looking into his eyes for a long moment before she sighed. "Here." She set it on the table next to his bed and took a step back, nervously combing her hand through her hair ponytail and twisting a few strands around her fingers.. 

"I'll just leave it. I'm sorry for bugging you. Just, umm... one more thing." Beth shifted on the balls of her feet. "Well you know, everyone is getting together to celebrate tonight and I think there's gonna be drinking and extra food or something? But I volunteered to watch Judy, you know, so everyone could have their fun, so... If you don't wanna go but you don't wanna just be alone, you could... you could come hang out with me and Judith, if you want." She ducked her head and shrugged. "That probably sounds boring. Sorry." Beth cleared her throat awkwardly, but as she turned and walked towards his cell door, she added over her shoulder, "Have a nice day, Daryl."

She had just reached the doorway when she heard Daryl roughly ask behind her, "You ain't got anyone t' give you a card?"

She paused in the opening and turned to look at him. The card still lay untouched on the table, but he was peering up at her with those sharp blue eyes. The focus made her shift in place again as if he had her pinned. "No. Not since Zach..." She shrugged. He knew what she meant. "I think the last time I had a Valentine was Jimmy. We were only friends, then, we weren't together yet." She smiled softly. "He tried to bring me my favorite flowers, but he got it wrong. Brought me white asters. They were pretty, though." 

Again she turned to leave, only to hear him ask quietly, "What's your real favorite?" 

Beth smiled, and gave him a little shrug. "Yellow daisies. It's my favorite color and they're just..." 

"Simple." 

"Yeah. Exactly. Simple, but pretty." With that, and the fact that he didn't seem to have anything else to say, Beth gave him a little wave and then slipped out the door.

Later that night, she and Judith were alone in her cell together. She had used the construction paper to cut out little figures and was sitting on the floor with Judith, trying to tell her a story with them. It wasn't going so well, mostly because Judith kept trying to grab them from her and crunch them in her tiny (but surprisingly strong) little hands. 

"No, Judy! Don't crumple the dolly, sweet pea-- Oh no you've ripped off Mr. Paper's arm, poor thing." 

A laugh from the doorway made Beth jump, her head lifting sharply like a startled deer. When she focused finally, it was to spot Daryl of all people, leaning in the open doorway to her cell. The last person she'd thought to see there was him, his lean frame propped against the opening, clad in his usual torn jeans, long-sleeve shirt, and the leather vest he wore over it. Beth's eyes widened in surprise as she finally breathed out, "Hey..." 

"Mr. Paper?" Daryl gave her a hint of a little smirk that unexpectedly had something fluttering in her belly for the briefest little moment. 

"Well I was trying to think on the spot," Beth replied wryly. "Plus it's probably better than giving them real names, considering Judy is just gonna rip them all up." 

"Needs someone to hold her, while you tell the story." Daryl nodded down at the little girl, who was struggling to reach for the armless paper doll again. "Keep her hands busy." 

With a slow arch of one brow, Beth asked playfully, "You volunteering, Daryl Dixon?" 

For a moment he hesitated, and she saw something unexpected shift across his face. Nervousness? Awkwardness? A tiny little hint of hope? Before she could pin it down it all fluttered away under that calm mask of his, but then he stepped forward into her cell and murmured lowly, "Got y' something." Before she could even ask what he was pulling his hand from behind his back and thrusting out a small little bouquet of yellow daisies. They were a bit ragged, the ends clearly sawed roughly with a knife and one of two petals bruised or dangling. But they were bright and cheery, even more so against his dirty hand, and in a way the sound of them was almost like... like a thunderclap of color in the darkness, maybe. Or an excited shout in the midst of dull silence. They were _beautiful_.

"Daryl! You went and got me daisies?" 

The moment Beth asked the question in that breathless tone, she saw that awkwardness in him again. He thrust the daisies right at her as he scrubbed his hand through his hair and shifted awkwardly in place. "S'nothing, alright? Was out tryin' t' get something for their big dinner, an' I saw them, and I thought of- S'nothing. Just take 'em." 

He said the last bit roughly, but Beth knew he wasn't angry. He was just uncomfortable; looking at him, she saw that clear as day. She remembered how he had been with her before, too, like that day in the cell when he'd come in to tell her about Zach. She'd hugged him and every inch of him had been tense until he'd lifted just one hand to cup her elbow. Daryl Dixon wasn't much for displays of affection or gratitude. He wasn't much for people at all. And that was fine, with her. Beth would never push him.

She took the daisies with a smile and buried her face in them for a long moment before she sighed. "I'm gonna go get a glass from the kitchen to put them in." She climbed to her feet and gave him a soft smile. "Will you watch Judy for me?" 

Daryl hesitated, but only for a moment. "Sure. I'll watch Lil' Asskicker." 

With a chuckle at the nickname, Beth moved to the doorway but stopped to watch Daryl drop down to the ground and scoop Judith up in her arms. He held her like a natural. Instantly the baby cooed and reached for his hair, tugging on it with a laugh that made Daryl smile wider than she'd seen him do in ages. It was that smile that had her venturing, "Maybe after you can stay a bit, and help me tell Judy the story of the paper family?" 

"Mm." He shrugged. "Ain't got nothin' else t' do." 

To anyone who didn't know him, it would have been bordering on rude. But to Beth it was his version of saying 'yes, I'd love that'. Or as close as she'd get from him, anyway. So when she left to go get that glass for the flowers, Beth couldn't help smiling to herself. For once, Daryl Dixon wasn't spending a holiday alone. He was spending it with her; and with Judy, of course. Even if he hated the holiday, at least he knew someone cared. 

(Though on her way back from the kitchen, with her flowers in a cup full of water, Beth passed by Daryl's cell and when she glanced inside, she very nearly stumbled. There her red heart was, taped up to the wall beside his bed by what she could only assume was his own careful hand. And she couldn't help thinking... maybe Daryl Dixon didn't hate Valentine's Day  _quite_ so much, after all. Maybe he'd just never had anyone who wanted to share it with him.) 


	4. Shoelace Signs (1)

**Title:** Shoelace Signs (1)  
 **Word Count:** 2850  
 **Universe:** Post-Coda divergent.  
 **Rating:** General  
 **Brief Summary:** The group is forced to abandon Beth’s body mid-burial, and they are shocked to find it missing after they finally manage to get back. Despite the group’s desire to move on, Daryl refuses to give up, and his faith is rewarded.  
 **Notes:** Inspired by some pre-5B theories about what might happen with Beth's body post-Coda, after some preview images came out from S05.E10. Assumed Beth left the hospital in her scrubs without changing, but is otherwise canon.

* * *

It had been Daryl who had insisted on going back for her body, because the fact that they’d even left it behind in the first place had been threatening to bring him to his knees with guilt each moment of the full day since they had abandoned her. Beth deserved more. She deserved better than to be left half-buried in a grave, wrapped in a sheet and barely covered in the dirt they’d been shoveling in when the herd had overtaken them.

Of course what Beth really deserved was to be alive and with him- with _them_ at the very least, her family- but he couldn’t give her that because he’d failed her, he’d lost her. He’d let her get taken, he’d let her get abused, he’d let her get killed. He had failed her in every way possible and he refused to fail her one more time. He might not have been able to keep her alive but the least he could do was make sure she got buried the way she deserved.

Except when they found their way back, the grave was empty. Well, _almost_ empty. The sheet remained, all covered in dirt and blood and hanging over the edge as if it had been dragged up and left there. But by who? The entire clearing in the woods was a mess of footprints; the shuffling dragging steps of walkers overlaying the old prints of the group from when they’d dug the grave barely a day ago to lay her to rest.

As he stood over the empty grave staring in shock he was dimly aware of the sounds around him; muffled conversations laden with confusion, the rustling of trees, the shifting of impatient feet, all shot through by Maggie’s sharp sobs which were painful more from the annoyance they made him feel than anything sort of kindred connection to her grief. (As far as he was concerned, she hadn’t earned the right to such grief in any way, shape, or form.)

“Daryl.” He felt the familiar weight of Rick’s hand on his shoulder. “We gotta go. Herd could come back this way at any moment.” The herd had followed them through the forest until they’d found shelter. They’d spent the night holed up in some broken down barn, all of them shoving their bodies against the door in a desperate attempt to keep the herd of walkers from breaking through while thunder and lightening crashed and echoed around them.

It had been Carl who had found the window up in the loft and the ladder propped up under some moldy hay, allowing them all to quickly and quietly climb down the back of the barn and make their way safely back into the woods without catching notice of the shambling herd. Which wasn’t to say, of course, that the herd might not find it’s way back there. Even after all this time they had no way of knowing what the damn geeks really could sense.

A part of him knew Rick was right; it wasn’t safe here. They should go, they should move on. The voice that urged him to just go wasn’t one that was filled with hope, though. It was a dark voice, a dead voice. It was a voice that told him to leave this (her) behind, to keep trudging and walking, onward and onward forever... But towards what? What- or who- was he moving on towards, these days? It had been Beth who had kept him moving after the prison; Beth who had shown him that glimmer of hope and goodness in the world. It had been Beth who he’d kept moving for even after, always searching, never giving up on her because she had never given up on him or on their family.

It had always been Beth.

(Maybe it still was.)

His gaze shifted, picking apart the layered tracks that crisscrossed the packed, still-damp dirt... and then he saw it. The delicate press of a sneaker pointing away from the grave and towards the woods.

“I ain’t goin’.” The gruff words spilled from his lips before he could stop himself, not that he’d wanted to. He turned to Rick, his gaze as steady as he could make it when all he wanted to do was take off after those marks in the dirt. _Beth, Beth, Beth_. He remembered shouting her name over and over, feet pounding at the pavement as he raced down the road after her and the car that had taken her away from him.

He had given up, then, collapsing to the ground in defeat. He wouldn’t give up now.

“I’m goin’ after her.” He gestured down at the sheet, at the footprint only he seemed to have notice, and when he looked up he saw something in Rick’s eyes that almost made him growl. _Pity_. He hated pity more than almost anything.

“Daryl...” There it was in Rick’s voice now as well as his eyes, pity dripping from every word, “She’s gone, Daryl. I know it’s hard to hear, but she’s gone. Either the walkers took her-” From behind them, Maggie choked out another sob. “-or she turned into one herself. Either way she’s gone, Daryl. We need to move on. She’d have _wanted_ us to move on.”

This time he did growl; a primal, animalistic sound that rose up from deep in his broad chest, surprising Rick enough to make the man step back even before Daryl snapped, “What she would have wanted was for people- her family- to _care_ about her. What she’d have wanted was for us to have fought for her, to have _hoped_ for her, to act even for once like we didn’t all think she was just some guaranteed dead girl.”

Hearing the echo of Beth’s words in his head ( _I made it and you don't get to treat me like crap just because you're afraid_ ), he whirled on the group and jabbed an accusing finger at Maggie as he growled, “She’d have wanted her sister to put up signs for _her_ after the prison.” He swept his gaze around the whole group. “She’d have wanted her family to come to rescue her because they _cared_ , not just because Carol was there and Beth was some convenient presence you could hand a damn weapon to on the rescue mission for someone you thought was more important.”

He ignored the outcries, especially the one from Maggie, who in his opinion didn’t even deserve the sobs she kept giving. “Cause you know what?” He turned back to Rick and raised his brow. “ _Beth_ would have done that for any of y’all. She’d have kept fighting. She’d never have given up. She _didn;t_  ever give up on any of y’all, even when every one of you gave up on her.” His voice was low and rough and thick with emotion as he ground out, “Well I ain’t gonna, alright? I ain’t gonna do that to her, not again. I’m goin’ after her an’ if you wanna come, y’ can, but ain’t none of you gonna stop me.”

Without waiting for the half-assed arguments he knew would follow, Daryl turned and headed off into the woods to follow the tracks that he, at least, couldn’t fail to notice.

Though some part of him was disappointed, he couldn’t really say he was surprised not to hear anyone follow him. Maybe they thought he’d change his mind and come back. Maybe they thought somehow that he would give up. If they truly did than they didn’t know him. He had almost brought himself to the brink of his own death hunting for Sophia; he would grind himself to dust if needed, for just a single sliver of a chance that Beth was alive.

Alive or walker, Beth’s footprints were at least clear thanks to the wet dirt left behind by the rain. The prints staggered and stuttered, but that meant nothing either way. A walker would stagger just as much as a girl would if she had been stumbling away from walkers while suffering from a head wound and blood loss and lord knew what else.

For a long time it was just that, her stumbling footprints and the occasional smear of blood, but finally he found something else to give him hope. Five feet passed a trampled bush, he found black shoelaces draped over the low branch of a tree. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see her in his mind; blue hospital scrubs, bracelets on her cast-free wrist, and converse sneakers on her feet, one laced in black and the other in white. Carefully he tugged the shoelace free of the branch and held it in his hand for a few seconds; as long as he could spare in this hunt to pause and compose himself before moving on.

He didn’t leave them behind. He wouldn’t leave any bit of her behind, if he could help it. Instead, as he strode through the forest following the footprints left by what he could only hope were the same sneakers this had been laced through, he wound the shoelaces around his arm and tied them tightly as a reminder of what he was chasing after.

For all he knew, the shoelace was some crazy coincidence, though to be honest Daryl wasn’t the type to believe in coincidences. One black shoelace could have meant anything, no matter how badly he wanted it to be a sign, but a half mile later when he found a white shoelace tied in a sloppy knot around another tree branch, he knew it was more. It wasn’t just a coincidence.

It was her. She was leaving him signs.

No, she was leaving him a _trail_. Whatever state she was in, Beth was aware enough to know that he would come looking for her, that he would try to find her. As he wound the white laces around his opposite arm it struck him hard that even now she still had faith, even now she still believed... in _him_.

Daryl didn’t think anyone had ever believed in him the way Beth Greene did and there was no way in this hell on earth that he was gonna let her down.

After the shoelaces he found her bracelets, hooked onto branches and dangling from bushes and once, perched on a rock in the middle of the stream she’d stumbled across. By then the sun had begun to set but there was still enough light to see by. There at the stream, he’d not only seen her footprints but the marks of her knees as well where she’d fallen to the ground; maybe to drink water from the stream, or wash her hands and face. By now the water had carried most of the evidence away, but not the proof she’d left behind for him all on her own, the irrefutable sign she’d given him that she had been there, _alive,_ still believing he would follow her.

Thanks to the growing storm clouds above it was fully dark when he finally came to the structure in the woods. Another shed, similar to the one they’d huddled in last night when the herd of walkers had trapped them. There was no moon to light his way but the flashes of lightning from the approaching storm revealed the structure looming out of the darkness of the woods.

He’d pushed himself all day, but he’d more than had the endurance for it. For her, he thought he might have the endurance for just about anything. Despite the fact that for the last half hour he’d only gotten glimpses of her footprints in the brief flashes of distant lightening, Daryl still trusted his instincts. He always trusted his instincts, but especially today, and the final sign she left him proved that he was right to do so.

Wrapped around the handled of the shed door and flapping lightly in the breeze stirred up by the storm was a strip of fabric. He could barely see it in the darkness, but he knew what it would look like if he’d had more light to glimpse it by. Blue, just like the color of the scrubs she’d been wearing when he’d carried her limp body down all those stairs in his arms.

After all this time, after a day spent tracking her through the woods and weeks spend struggling to find her after losing her, it was the sight of that flapping fabric that nearly brought him to his knees, because he knew what it meant. She was in there, inside that shed, not just sheltering for the night but waiting. For _him_.

He wouldn’t keep her waiting any longer. He couldn’t, because he just didn’t have it in him and the truth was that he had been waiting for this moment since he’d lost her.

Slinging his crossbow onto his back, Daryl strode up to the door and pulled it open to step inside. A flash of lightening lit the interior and gave him his first glimpse of the shed; a big open space, dusty and filled with what he could only assume were now-rusted tools, or perhaps hunting supplies.

Another flash, and there on the ground, scuff-marks in the dust left by sneakers that had grown loose with no laces to hold them shut. He didn’t call out to her. He didn’t know if he even could because his throat was so tight with both tension and hope that he was pretty sure it wouldn’t let him do anything other than grunt or groan.

Step by step he made his way into the barn, his head turning slowly from side to side, peering out under the fringe of his hair for a sign, _any_ sign of her...

A flash of lightning; nothing but a bucket stuck in a dusty corner.

Another flash, and a worrying shadow turned into a pile of furs. Distantly he realized it had been a hunter’s cabin, and the irony was not lost on him. He was the hunter, but she wasn’t his prey. She was his salvation. She was everything good in the world. She was simply _Beth_. She was...

There. She was right there. A crack of thunder directly overheard and then a bright flash, and in the far corner of the room he saw her slumped against the wall. Her once-blue scrubs were stained with the same blood that marred her forehead and dripped down her cheek from the wound in her head, but she was there... and she was looking right at him like _he_ was the miracle, or the ghost.

In the time between that clap of thunder and the next he closed the gap between them and dropped to his knees in front of her. Lightning flared through the windows, lighting up eyes that were wide with surprise and yet filled with the same hope he’d seen in the mover and over again, against all odds.

In the silence that followed, she breathed out in a thick, slurred voice, “D’ryl?”

The next thunder clap crashed above loud enough to echo through his bones, but by that time they were already trembling from the relief of having her in his arms and gathered close; no longer limp and seemingly-lifeless but alive, alive, _alive._

He didn’t even know he was whispering her name over and over again ( _Beth, Beth, Beth_ ) until her fingers found his lips, the soft pads of them grazing over his mouth to silence him just long enough for her to slowly get out, “Knew... you’d come. Knew you’d... find... me... Wouldn’t... give up...”

“Never.” His fingers curled in the ends of her ponytail as his hand pressed to her back and held her to his chest. He ignored the twigs tangled within her hair just as he ignored the faint tang of blood on his lips as he pressed his mouth to her temple and held her desperately close. “I ain’t never gonna give up on you, Beth. No matter what. Cause it was you, Beth.” He drew in a shuddering breath that rattled in his chest. “You taught me to have faith. You taught me there was good in the world.” In a whisper against her warm skin, he breathed out finally, “It was always you.”

When she finally spoke, it was just to whisper back in a voice thick with emotion, “ _Oh_.”

And it was enough. It was more than enough, because this time he wasn’t going to let her go. This time he wasn’t going to lose her again. Soon they’d get up, soon they’d figure out just how badly she was injured and what she’d to heal her wounds and survive, soon maybe they’d even finish the conversation they’d started so many weeks ago in the flickering candlelight of that abandoned funeral home.

But for now, with the rumble of thunder overheard matching the pounding rhythm of his heart as the bright flash of lightning illuminated the dust motes swirling around them, all that mattered was her in his arms. _Alive_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one actually has a second part, or another ficlet in the same 'world'. I will post it for the next chapter!


	5. Shoelace Signs (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to the previous ficlet I posted. Enjoy! :)

**Title:** Shoelace Signs (2)  
 **Word Count:** 2633  
 **Universe:** Post-Coda divergent.  
 **Rating:** General  
 **Brief Summary:** Three weeks after finding Beth alive they've rejoined the group, but Daryl is still worried about Beth and whether she's really, fully there.  
 **Notes:** The prompt I got for this was about Beth seeing her scars and thinking they're ugly. It's a sequel to the previous ficlet I posted, Shoelace Signs (1), but can be read as a stand-alone..

* * *

It had been three weeks since he had found her. Three weeks since he’d tracked her through the woods, three weeks since he’d found her curled up on the floor of that abandoned hunters cabin with a bullet wound in her head. Three weeks since he’d pulled her into his arms and held her trembling body and felt a wave of gratefulness so strong that it would have brought him to his knees had he not already been there. 

Some part of him had wanted to just stay like that. Just the two of them, making it on their own, without the people who hadn’t cared enough to find Beth- not just once but again, and again. The people who had dismissed her over and over, had failed every time to believe that she could be alive. 

But in the end, he’d taken one long look at her; a bullet wound in her head and blood dripping down her cheek, and he knew that this, at least, they couldn’t handle alone. So they had gone back to the group. He could still remember the shock on their faces when they’d seen him coming out of the road with her in his arms. Her _moving_ , alive, looking over at them with a tremulous smile on her lips despite the fact that she knew none of them had come after her the way he had. That was Beth, though. Always hopeful. 

Or at least, she had been. Before the hospital, before the wounds she’d gotten there both inside and out, before the  added blows of realizing how little faith her own family (her own sister) had in her. And lately, he’d been worried. Every day it was like he could feel her drifting away and it filled him with terror. The relief that she hadn’t died was still there, but it was all wrapped up in that same fear, because what if… what if that gun-shot had taken her away from him after all? What if it had started the process, created a figurative hole inside of her from with all that hope and goodness and sweetness was escaping day after day, until her soul just drifted away. 

The group soldiered on, but he knew Beth didn’t feel like a part of it. He could see the way she always stuck to the edges, the way she hung around behind them or off to the sides, just out of their reach. He saw the way she would duck away from touches and hugs— especially from Maggie, who didn’t seem to realize that her sister wanted nothing to do with her over-wrought affection. 

The only one she would let near her was Daryl, and even that wasn’t like it used to be. Sure, she was sit against him, even lean into him at night when she slept. (In fact, it was the only way she would sleep, at his side.) But she was just so quiet. Not quiet in the way they’d sometimes been before, when it was just the two of them striding silently through the woods following tracks in the dirt or patterns in the leaves. This was an uneasy quiet, an _empty_  quiet, the sort of quiet that came from the distance in her eyes, the cloudy haze he saw in them the few rare times she would look up and meet his gaze.

He was losing her. And it terrified him as much as it fueled him. He had come too close, he had almost lost her so many times that he knew what it would do to him if he lost her for real. It wouldn’t just bring him to his knees, it would bring him to his end. 

He couldn’t let it happen. He refused. 

So he kept his eyes on her, because that was all he knew how to do. He didn’t know how to help her. He didn’t know how to _fix_  her. The irony was that sometimes he would think… Beth would know. Beth would know just what to say. Beth would know whether to talk, or listen, whether a hand down a back was needed, or a soft reassuring embrace. What was he supposed to do when the one person he knew was best at helping others heal was the one who needed that same help? He wasn’t her, and he never had been. All Daryl could do was bide his time and watch her, even though seeing her drift away was eating away at him inside with guilt and helplessness. 

They were staying for the night at the first abandoned house they’d seen in weeks. The plan had been to stick to the woods away from the roads (away from people), but eventually they’d had to drift closer to formerly populated areas just to try and find supplies. Of course having an actual roof over their heads wasn’t bad either. The only problem was that they were all on top of each other in the small home and while most of them didn’t mind these days (for some people, the closeness was just a reminder that they were together and alive) he knew it wasn’t the same for others.

Like Beth. He had been watching her most of the night as she stood off to the side, flinching sometimes when someone came too close or tried to draw her into the group. She watched them at with that same distance in her eyes, that same terrifying emptiness that he only saw fade a few times, when she would look up and meet his eyes and for just a moment he would see _something_ flicker in them. Something familiar. Something that told him all hope wasn’t lost, not entirely.

Daryl knew she was aware of his eyes on her, so when she slipped away from the group, he didn’t hesitate to follow. If he’d thought she truly wanted to be alone, he might have let her, but that last flicker of her eyes to his drew him towards her. He followed the sounds of her footsteps and the faint flashes of her blonde hair in the dark hallway as she made her way through the small home and into what looked like it had once been a spare bedroom, judging by the small pull-out bed and single dresser that it contained.

It was there that he found her, standing in front of the mirror that hung above the dresser. Her gaze was fixed down on the wooden surface as her fingers curled over the edge. Daryl didn’t say a word, not at first. He just came up behind her slowly, letting her hear his footsteps to give her time to stop him if she wanted. When she didn’t stop him, eventually he came to stand just a foot or so behind her. 

The silence seemed to stretch on, but Daryl didn’t break it. He didn’t want to, would have even if he had been the talkative type. This silence was hers to break, though he wouldn’t have pushed her if she’d chosen just to stay quiet still like she had so many nights in the past few weeks when all she’d done was sit down beside him and lean against him and just curl up there in silence, never saying a word.

Tonight though, was apparently different. “I’m afraid to look.” She hesitated a second and then turned to glance over her shoulder at him. “In the mirror. I… I’ve never seen… not since everything at the hospital.” Realization dawned as his gaze roamed across her face; still as sweet as always in his mind but permanently marked now by the scars across her face and the white bandage that covered the healing wound on her forehead. 

He wasn’t sure if she wanted or needed him to reply or not. The silence lingered and her eyes held his and in them he could see that shift again like something akin to need, and he just desperately wanted to be able to give her whatever it was she wanted, whatever it was she _needed_. “You don’t have to look,” he said roughly.

"I think maybe I do." Beth’s voice was hoarse from disuse, but she still had that soft sweet tone he had grown so used to hearing day after day. "I need to see… who I am, now."

"You’re Beth." Daryl spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world because to him, it was. No matter how she’d changed, she was still the girl he’d always known. The girl he’d believed in, the girl he’d cared for, the girl he’d…

_What changed your mind?_  
 _Oh_. 

"But what if I’m _not?_ " She breathed out the words in a whisper and he saw her fingers clench hard around the edge of the dresser. "What if I changed, but for the worse? What if I don’t even recognize myself anymore?"

He knew of course that she didn’t just mean physically. Beth was afraid that she didn’t know what sort of person she was anymore, _who_  she was, who she had become. She was hiding that fear well, wrapping it up in the more superficial fear of the changes to her face, but he knew. It wasn’t just because he’d tried to hide away like that himself in the past, tried to hide from who he was afraid he had become, afraid of what being a Dixon meant. It was because he knew _her_. He’d never realized just how well until he’d lost her, but Daryl Dixon _knew_  Beth Greene. And he refused to let her be lost, not just to him but to herself. 

Daryl came up behind her slowly until her back was lightly pressed to his chest. For a moment she leaned back and both of them sighed almost in unison at the closeness, the nearness, the familiarity of each other. Then his hand lifted, his fingers sliding gently under her chin, and as he turned to guide her face towards the mirror he murmured, “Look.” 

For a moment, he thought she’d keep refusing. She turned but her eyes stayed shut and he stayed balancing on that edge, that line between helping and pushing. He could only bring her there, he wouldn’t push her before she was ready. But she was strong. Beth Greene was the strongest woman he knew, even if _she_  didn’t always believe that, and sure enough after a moment, her eyes fluttered open.

All he could do was watch as her gaze shifted across the dusty glass of the mirror. Daryl saw her gaze tracing first the thick dark scar that marred the apple of her pale cheek and then up, to the matching one slashed above her right eye. He saw her tremble as she found the bandage that covered the wound on the left side of her head, hiding the bullet wound that they all knew would leave another scar. 

And he saw, for the first time since that night at the moonshine shack ( _that’s how stupid I am)_ when her big blue eyes began to water despite the fact that her attempts to keep from crying had every inch of her tense and trembling. “I look like… a _monster_.” 

"No." He bit back the urge to growl the word, but it came out no less firm and almost rough with the intensity of his belief in it. For one moment he let his heated eyes find hers, and then he breathed out a sigh. "You look like a _survivor_. You look like…  _Beth_.” Already she was shaking her head at him, and it was too much. He could stand seeing her like this so full of doubt when she was always brimming over with hope and maybe this, finally, was the breaking point for him. Maybe it was what finally pushed him past his inability to find the right thing to say or do, because he no longer cared what was ‘right’. All he cared about was banishing the tears and doubt and fear from her eyes. 

One of his hands came up to rest on her hip and the other reached around again, sliding across her shoulder and up to gently cup her chin from behind as he murmured, “You… you’re beautiful.” He leaned in so closely that his nose was buried in her blonde hair as he rested his lips near her ear and murmured into the safety of their intimate nearness, “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. That ain’t never changed. Your scars, they don’t make you a monster, Beth. Just like…”

In front of him she swallowed hard and breathed out in a whisper, “Just like yours?” 

Of course she knew. He’d never showed her them on purpose, but of course Beth knew. She’d gotten a glimpse once, back at the farm when he’d been injured and under her father’s care, and during their time on the road together it had been harder to hide things like that, no matter how hard he tried. And he had told her things, things he’d never told anyone else before her. So she knew, because she was Beth, and she just _saw_  him.

"Yeah. Like mine." He offered her the faintest quirk of the corner of his lips and then added, “‘Cept I ain’t near as pretty as you."

"I’m not-"

"You are." He gently turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. His hand cupped her cheek and his thumb brushed over the scar there, running the rough pad of it across the permanently marked flesh. "Beautiful," he whispered as he looked into her eyes. He hesitated for only one second and then leaned in to press his lips to the scar on her forehead, covering it with the warmth of his lips before he whispered out against her skin, "Beautiful."

Only when he drew back and saw a hint of that same warmth in her eyes did he turn her gently back to face the mirror. “We all change, Beth. We can’t help it and yeah, some of us change for the worse, but you? Never. Never you, okay? You will _never_  be a monster.” He felt her lean back against him and as the tension eased from her body he rested his chin on the top of her head where it was lightly tickled by her soft hair. “You’re strong and brave and good and just about the prettiest damn girl I’ve ever seen. You’re _Beth_.” 

Her half-shut eyes fluttered open to meet his in the mirror, and for the first time in weeks, he saw _her_. All of her, bright and present in those big blue eyes, every bit of cloudy distance vanished as she breathed out, ”I’m Beth.” 

"Yeah you are." And there was nothing else that needed to be said. Nothing else that needed to be done except to stand here with her, holding her, as long as she needed him. Eventually, he even stopped worrying that the light in her eyes would fade away as he watched. He should have known better. Despite everything, she really was the strongest woman he knew, but if he needed to whisper her name a hundred times to keep reminding her of that he would. 

(And he did make a good start that night, when they ended up curling up together in that small bed just so she could keep the warm reassurance of his arms around her, and he helped her to sleep by kissing across all of her scars and whispering her name again and again, like a prayer, like a benediction, like a reminder to both of them that she was right there, alive, and not a monster. Not drifting away. Not lost. Just  _Beth_.)  


	6. Daryl Needs a Shower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by last week's episode of TWD (which I didn't actually watch but somehow still felt the need to fix, lol)!

**Title:** Daryl Needs a Shower  
**Word Count:** 1118  
**Universe:** Post-Coda "fix it", in the same universe as [Living With Nothing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3369293).  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Brief Summary:** No one can get Daryl to shower, except Beth, who can get him to do just about anything.  
**Notes:** Another fix-it fic, as mentions above it actually works as a sequel to "Living With Nothing" which was a one-shot I posted after S05.E10. 

* * *

They've been there two days and one of the first things everyone did was shower. Just stepped into the hot spray of water like they could wash off everything they'd gone through these last few months (or even years) that easily. Like the water wouldn't just carry dirt and grime with it down the drain but hurt and pain and the darkest of memories, too. Like they could erase what had happened out there and what they had become. 

Daryl knows different. He knows they can't erase the past, just like he knows the grime on his skin is like a protection, like a shield against the stares of all the people in this damn place. He sticks out like a sore thumb but it was never gonna be any different. He ain't made for places like this. He can't slip back into the past like Rick in his uniform, or Carol in that ugly ass cardigan of hers or even Carl, already making friends with the other kids. He's not like them.

Neither is Beth. But Beth has always been different in her own way. She doesn't try to sink back into her old skin; she finds ways to make her new one work. Just as she had been ever since she came back to him with that round scar on her forehead to match the slashed scars on her cheek and brow. Beth is already making this new place work and he's pretty sure she's got everyone here wrapped around her finger now with her sweet smiles and her big blue eyes.

He knows she's got him wrapped even tighter.

What amazes him most is that this whole damn place seems tailor made for her and yet it's him she gravitates to. It's him she shares a house with, him she waits for during his interview, him for whom she uses those big doe eyes to help convince them to let him keep his bow.

It's him she's smiling at now as she passes Carol on the walkway coming back up to the house they share, just in time to hear the tail-end of his rough teasing words.

"What was that about?" She asks with a nod towards Carol as she steps up onto the porch with him.

"Threatening to hose me off like I'm some kinda dog." He grunts the words, but it's different than the rough tone he used with Carol or anyone else here. It's softer because she makes him feel softer, inside if not out. 

"You're not a dog," she murmurs as she comes up beside him and lets her hand rest on his knee. Says it so easily like it's the simplest truth and of course when she says it, it is. "The neighbors have one, though, did you see it?" Her eyes light up and just like that he's mesmerized. "A _dog_ , Daryl!" 

He can remember her saying that another time, just as easily as he can remember wanting to give her that damn dog and how that want had almost cause him to lose her forever. 

But Beth sees it in his eyes (these days he wonders if there's a thing she misses when it comes to him) and in an instant her fingers are curling around his wrist. "C'mon," she says, tugging at his wrist  to pull him after her.

He grumbles but he follows. Of course he follows. There's nothing he wants more in the world than to follow after her, his eyes on the swing of her ponytail and the little smile she casts over her shoulder at him. It had been a smile just like that which had convinced him she was real, after she'd shown up outside of that barn like some daydream. That smile, and the kisses she'd pressed to his hand, right over the mark where he'd burned himself. 

It's only when they're up the stairs that Daryl realizes where she'd leading him; right to the bathroom. He stops in the doorway with another grunt and crosses his arms over his chest. "Can't make me shower, you know." 

"Oh, I know." She gives him a little smile over her shoulder and really that's all he needs to see to know she's got something planned. He knows that smile. He saw it enough in the weeks they were together, that special little curve of the corner of her lips, all playful and daring. "Can't make you do anything you don't want, right?" 

He nods. Damn straight.

Only what she does next makes him freeze, makes his ears go red as every inch of him floods with unexpected heat. Because Beth Greene is reaching down and drawing her shirt up over her head to toss it aside and all he can see is the perfect delicate curve of her soft, smooth back and lord, she's not even wearing a bra, is she?

No, she's definitely not. He can see the hint of the curve of her breast as she unbuttons her jeans and draws them down over her hips, leaving her in nothing but panties. 

"It's your choice," she murmurs softly. The words take a moment to register, because all he can see is soft sweet skin and delicate curves and the brush of her blonde hair against the dip of her back and god, he's never seen anything sweeter. Like she was ice cream on a hot summer day and he was burning right up craving her. 

And then Beth reaches down and slides her panties over her hips to fall to the floor, revealing the tight perfect curves of her ass as she looks over her shoulder and added, "You can join me in the shower, or not." She smiles. "Your choice."

She knows there's not really a choice there and fuck, so does he. Because there's no part of him that wants to pull away right now from the sight of her turning on the shower and climbing in, holding the curtain open both in invitation and to allow him to see the first drops of water rolling down her bare skin.

There's no real choice, but he acts like there is as he closes the door behind her and removes his vest with a shrug of his shoulders. "Alright," he says, slow and easy like his heart isn't drumming out a rhythm trying to beat it's way from his chest. "Guess a shower wouldn't be too bad."

(And it ain't. In fact it's the best damn shower he's ever had, though to be honest, he's not thinking too much about the grime of his skin anymore when he's got the slick expanse of hers to run his hands all over.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see the full version of the Beth manip [here on my tumblr](http://burningupasun.tumblr.com/post/112907780399/daryl-needs-a-shower-by-burningupasun-what)!


	7. Fireman Dixon

**Title:** Fireman Dixon  
**Word Count:** 2435  
**Universe:** Non-zombie AU  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Daryl Dixon is on the night shift at the fire station when he gets called to a fire at the Greene family farm.  
**Notes:** Written in response to an ask I got to "imagine firefighter Daryl Dixon". So I did. And it was very fun to imagine.

* * *

He was working the late shift at the station when the call came in. A fire, down at the Greene farm. Daryl was on his feet and moving before Tyreese was even finished taking the call and they were suited up and on the truck in barely a minute. T-dog drove  the damn truck so fast he was amazed they didn’t careen off the road. They’d have hurried for anyone, it was their job after all. But everyone knew the Greene family. Hershel was the town veterinarian and pretty much everyone’d had an animal taken to him at some point. His wife Annette was the nicest woman Daryl had ever met, although considering the sort of people he’d spent time with before settling here, maybe that wasn’t so much of a surprise. 

But she always had a kind word for him since the first day he’d moved here; when everyone else had only looked at him sideways and muttered under their breath, Annette had been sweet and kind and polite. Even friendly. They had three kids all told. Annette had told him about them all herself once when he’d been convinced by Rick Grimes- the sheriff, and his first friend in town (maybe his first friend ever)- to go to some stupid town fair. It had all seemed like bullshit to him, but Annette had been selling her pies at a booth there and before he’d known what had hit him, the lady had been chatting away at him and he hadn’t even minded. 

So he knew there was Maggie, Hershel’s daughter from his first marriage who was in Atlanta right now for school, and Shawn, Annette’s son from her first marriage who had gone off to play football last year for the Bulldogs. And of course there was Beth, Hershel and Annette’s 18 year old daughter, the only one still living at home. She was almost the spitting image of her Ma, or at least she’d seemed it the few times he’d seen her, mostly from a distance. The same sunshine-blonde hair and big blue eyes and the sort of slender little figure that made her look like one tough breeze might blow her away. But he’d always wondered if maybe little Beth Greene was tougher than she looked.

The smell of smoke thick in his nostrils pulled Daryl from his thoughts just as they came down the long driveway to the farm and he couldn’t help it; his throat clenches for a moment. He’d seen plenty of fires before in the couple years he’d been a fireman here. But nothing like this. Nothing like the sight of that barn gone up in flames, stark against the night sky. Nothing involving people he actually knew and maybe even liked.

"Please help!" A woman’s voice echoed across the field as he climbed down from the truck and started reaching for his gear only to stop and turn when he realized who it was. Annette spotted him with the sharp cry. "Daryl! Oh thank god, Daryl it’s Beth!" She clutched his arms, soot marking her cheek and her blue eyes big and wide with terror. "She ran back into the barn, she’s _in there now_ , Daryl you have to save her, please!”

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t even think about it, just like he didn’t think about how there’s something twisting in his belly the moment he pictures that sweet blonde-haired girl trapped inside, surrounded by hungry flames.

She spoke to him once, when Rick and Lori had a cookout and invited him and the Greene family, along with half the town it seemed. Daryl never would have thought a girl like him would ever speak to a man like him; with his short dirty hair and his worn jeans and the leather vest he wore over his sleeveless shirt. But she came right up to him with Rick’s daughter in her arms- Judy, they all called her- and gave him a slow smile. “Hey.” 

He’d just looked her over and grunted. He very nearly just turned and walked off. It was what he’d normally have done. But there was something about the way she was looking at him all sweet and open, that’d had him grumbling, “Ain’t you got more interestin’ people to talk to?”

And she’d just blinked at him and then given him that slow, sweet smile. “What if I think you’re interesting?”

He hadn’t talked to her much that day. He wasn’t a talker then. Wasn’t much more of one now. But as he stood there staring down the flames that licked and curled around the opening of the barn, her soft words echoed in his mind. _What if I think you’re interesting?_ And without hesitating, he ran right through the doorway and into the burning barn.

"Beth!" Flames crackled around him and smoke billowed in the air, enough to disorient anyone who hadn’t been trained for something like this. Hell he _had_  been trained and it was still fucking disorienting. “Beth!” He cried out her name again, straining ears honed by years and years of hunting out in the woods where the single crackle of a dry leaf could set you on the right path. 

There. Above him, a cough coming from the loft of the barn. “I’m coming, Beth!” The ladder was in the corner of the barn and he had just a moment to be glad the fire hadn’t reached it yet before he had to move. The weight of his uniform was something he’d long become accustomed to, and it didn’t hold Daryl down as he climbed rung by rung up the later and onto the loft. Smoke rises, everyone knew that. _Beth_  should have known that, but there was up in the smoke-filled loft, an almost impossibly small figure curled up in the corner by a bale of hay.

The closer he got, the more he could see her shoulders trembling as she coughed and again he felt that twist in his gut and the ache in his heart as he reached down to scoop her into his arms. “I got you. S’okay, I got you.” 

Her fingers curled into his arm and her eyes flew open. “Wait!” She ground the words out in a smoke-rough voice, coughing until her whole body shook. 

"Can’t wait, girl! We gotta get you out of here _now_.”

He was staring to rise to his feet when she gripped his arm hard and forced the words out, “Sunshine! My cat, she’s in the corner over there, I was tryin- tryin’ to- to save-“

The coughs wracked her whole body and all Daryl could do was breathe out in disbelief, “You ran back in here to save your _cat_?” 

Even through the haze of smoke she fixed her reddened eyes on him, forcing her coughing to subside long enough for her to whisper plaintively, “She has _kittens_.”

Fucking _kittens_. Merle’s voice echoed through his mind with a harsh laugh. _This fucking girl risked her damn life for a litter of mewling rats. What a joke_.

It wasn’t a joke to Daryl. Not then, looking down at the girl in his arms and remembering the smile on her lips back at the cook-out, the way she tilted her head as she looked up at him and said so simply: _What if I think you’re interesting?_

Of course a girl like that, with a mother like Annette and a father like Hershel, would risk her life to run into a burning barn and save a litter of damn kittens. 

Well if it was that important to her, he wasn’t gonna make it so she’d taken that risk for nothing. 

"Stay low," he grunted, laying her back on the ground before he scooted across the loft over to the hay bales in the corner. It only took a few seconds before he heard the soft peeps and looked down to see a gray cat curled around a litter of four little squeaking kittens. _Shit_.

"Gonna put them in this bag okay? Best I can do. And I’m gonna need you to hold onto it, okay?" He put the mama cat into the black bag first, grateful the smoke had taken the fight out of her. The kittens followed one after the other, curling around and on top of her as he zipped the top but left a slight gap. 

"C’mon, girl. You’re gonna have to hold on tight." With a grunt he picked her up and slung her over his broad shoulders in a fireman’s carry like she weighed nothing at all and the truth was, she barely did. She was like a damn feather. Even when she grabbed the strap of the bag of cats the weight was barely nothing. His muscles tightened and stretched but he moved slowly and carefully, climbing down the ladder to the ground with her in his arms. 

A minute later when he burst out the front door with her cradled bridal-style in his arms and a bag of kittens resting in her lap, all he heard was Annette’s grateful cries, “My baby, oh thank you, oh thank you so much Daryl, you saved my baby!” 

* * *

Daryl wasn’t much for thanks. Once he got Beth to Bob, the paramedic on duty tonight, he was pretty much out of there. After a handshake from Hershel and another enthusiastic hug from Annette, of course.

But Beth Greene lingered in his mind. He couldn’t stop seeing her big eyes all reddened from the smoke, her pink lips cracked, her voice strained as she plaintively whispered about saving the _kittens_ , when she was the one lying up there choking on smoke. 

Somehow, his day off came and he ended up at the hospital. Tyreese’s sister Sasha was a nurse there and she was the one who directed him up to the right room. If she gave him a little smile before sending him on his way, Daryl ignored it. He wasn’t even sure why he was here. The truth was if he’d found anyone else in the room, he’d have left. 

But there wasn’t anyone there. No one but him, stepping awkwardly into the room and her, laying on the hospital bed. She still looked so small against the cotton sheets. But she was all clean now, no more soot on her face and her blonde hair shining like a halo spread across her pillow. Her eyes weren’t reddened, either, and her lips were soft as they curved into a smile at the sight of him.

"Hey," she breathed out in a voice still soft and hoarse, "My hero."

"Ain’t no hero," he grunted without thinking about it, sticking his hands in his pockets and scuffing his foot against the ground. 

"Yes you are. You climbed up there and saved me after I ran up there like an idiot after my cat." Her soft voice wormed it’s way into his thoughts until he looked up at her from under his furrowed brow. "You’re kind of like my knight in shining armor, Daryl Dixon. Although it wasn’t so shiny and you didn’t ride a horse, but it was still armor. And you’re still like a knight."

He took one step closer and stopped, his shoulders all hunched up. “Ain’t no knight. Just doing my job.”

"If you say so." But the sound of her voice had him looking up at her again and he could see the way she was smiling. Couldn’t practically hear her voice whispering in his mind now, adding _my knight in shining armo_ r to _what if I think you’re interesting._

He scuffed his foot once on the ground, and then ventured roughly, “Weren’t stupid, y’know. Goin’ after your cat and her kittens. I think it was brave.”

"You do?" He nodded, and his reward was the smile that curved up her lips even wider and brightened her big blue eyes. "I still think it was a _little_  stupid.”

"Maybe." He chuckled, but as the laughter faded Daryl found himself just standing there looking down at her, feeling out of place and yet… and yet he didn’t quite want to leave. So when she began to softly cough, he moved to her side without thinking and poured her a cup of water and even helped her hold it to her lips to make sure she didn’t spill it. 

When he set the half-empty cup back down and looked over at her, so much closer now and still with those big eyes on him, he asked without thinking, “How’re the cats, anyway?”

"They all made it. Mama told me when she came to visit. Do you…" She blinked, and he was surprised to see a faint flush go over her cheeks. "Do you wanna hear about them, maybe?" 

He didn’t even think about it. Just lowered himself slowly into the chair next to her bed and leaned back to stretch his legs out in front of him with a nod. “Alright.” 

He just listened with amusement as she told him about Sunshine and her litter of kittens, and how she planned on naming one of them Dixon, because it was a little brave thing that liked to charge into trouble all the time. He didn’t even argue, though a part of him wanted to.

Just like he didn’t argue when she mentioned him coming by the next day on his break, or the day after that. In fact, Daryl visited her in the hospital every day that week until Thursday when the Doctors said she was ready to go home, and each day he came into her room with his head ducked, she just smiled at him.

She had the same smile on her lips that Friday when he came by the farmhouse after work and she opened the door to greet him. Just smiled at him like she’d never been happier, and brought him right into the house to show him Dixon, his namesake. Her Mom convinced him to stay for dinner, but it was Beth he stayed for really. Her and her smile… and the look in her eyes later that night when they walked out past the husk of the burnt-up barn.

There beneath the stars she called him her ‘hero’ again and leaned up on her toes to kiss his cheek when he didn’t protest.

He still didn’t think he was a hero. But he couldn’t find it in him to protest when she was so close and smelling so sweet and kissing his cheek. He didn’t much mind being called a hero, at least by Beth Greene anyway.


	8. The Cutest Baby

**Title:** The Cutest Baby  
**Word Count:** 2437  
**Universe:** Non-zombie AU  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Beth and Daryl meet in the maternity ward when Merle's girlfriend and Maggie and Glenn have their babies on the same night. Later, they add their own baby to the mix. But which baby is the cutest?  
**Notes:** This was originally in three parts, posting in response to prompts on tumblr, all set in the same 'verse'.

* * *

** PART ONE **

"Which one is yours?" With his hand pressed to the glass as he peered through, it took Daryl a moment to register that anyone was speaking at all, let alone to him. He was even more surprised when he looked over and saw who it was; some tiny little blonde thing, all big blue eyes and flushed cheeks, giving him a smile that was way too sweet for a man like him.

Confused he just grunted at her, until she asked again, “Which one of the babies is yours?”

Oh. He shrugged in response and very nearly left it at that- normally he would- but something about the way she was eyeing him, so open and clearly interested, had him clearing his throat and saying, “None of ‘em. My brother’s, uh, old lady… she had a boy today. S’right there.” He reached up and pointed to a baby in the front row, wearing the same white outfit as the rest with striped booties. 

Truth was he’d never expected Merle to do anything but run if he found out he’d knocked someone up. Maybe he’d underestimated him. More likely he’d underestimated Merle’s girlfriend, Destiny, who had wrapped him right around her finger and somehow gotten him to stay. Hell, seeing Merle swaggering proudly out of that delivery room announcing that he had a son was the last thing he’d ever expected to see and yet somehow, it was real. As real as the baby in there, squirming away, his face all screwed up like he was about to cry or something… Daryl chuckled at the sight. Lord he hoped that kid inherited Destiny’s looks and not his brother’s. 

Turning back to the blonde he asked, “What about you? Which one is yours?” Although truth be told, she looked way too young to be havin’ a kid. Was she even 18?

"See the baby girl right next to your nephew?" Daryl looked over to the sleeping baby with the thick head of black hair, and nodded. "That’s my niece. My older sister Maggie and her husband Glenn, this is their first. She’s beautiful, isn’t she?" 

"Yeah," he murmured back, his voice unexpectedly low. But his gaze was on the girl standing next to her and not the baby she’d pointed to as he added, "She is." The baby was pretty cute, he guessed. But she didn’t have blonde hair that managed to look like sunshine even under florescent lights, or eyes that reminded him of cornflowers out in the field, or maybe the blue sky above ‘em. 

Not like this girl did. Whoever she was.

"Name’s Daryl," he half-grunted before he could stop himself. "Daryl Dixon." His hand was shoved into his pocket and he began to draw it out, stopping and hesitating before pushing past his awkwardness to pull it free and offer it to her. 

He knew it was right the moment her hand slid into his and to his amazement, he felt no desire to tug it quickly away. In fact his hand lingered, dwarfing her much smaller one as his gaze held hers, mesmerized as she murmured sweetly back at him, “Beth Greene.” 

Daryl was just staring. Standing there, staring at her like some gape-mouthed idiot. _Say something_ , growled a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Merle. _Come on, Darylina. If you don’t say something, I will, and I don’t need Destiny hauling herself out of bed to find me and slap me after she just had my baby_. ”Listen, uhhh…” He pulled his hand belatedly free of hers and ran it through his long hair, pushing it back. “S’been a long day…”

"Oh, right." Was that disappointment on her face? "You probably wanna go home or something…" 

_Shit_. “No! I mean. No?” Fuck, he was an awkward sonofabitch. “Coffee,” he blurted out, darting his gaze quickly to her and then away again. “I was just gonna go get some coffee and I was wonderin’ if you’d… like to maybe come.” 

"You want to get a cup of coffee with me?" To his amazement when he risked a look over at her, she wasn’t looking at him in disbelief at all. She was _smiling_. 

And all he could do was give a little hint of a smile back as he nodded. “Sure. We can, uh… talk about which baby is cuter, or whatever it is people do in situations like this.” 

He was pretty sure it wasn’t that, but he didn’t know what else to say. Apparently, he was doing just fine though, because before he knew it Beth was bumping her arm against his and replying easily, “Alright.” And as they began to walk side by side down the hallway, she flashed him a grin and said, “But for the record? Cute as your nephew is, my niece is _definitely_  cuter.”

"Oh yeah? You willing to bet on that Greene?"

"Oh you’re on, Dixon."

* * *

** PART TWO **

"Beth, are you ready?" Daryl stood in front of their closed bedroom door, gently knocking when he didn’t hear a reply. "Beth? Everything okay?"

"No! Go away!" 

He was turning the handle at the first muffled syllable, and it wasn’t even because of her words. It was the tone in her voice. He knew that tone; he’d gotten to know it well these last couple months ever since his wife had seen the + symbol on the little over the counter test and told him that she was pregnant. “Beth…”

Despite knowing that tone- or perhaps because of it- Daryl was cautious as he pushed open the door and stuck his head into the bedroom. He only had to look around a moment before he spotted her. She was sitting on the bed with her jeans unbuttoned and her shirt only halfway covering her belly, and if it hadn’t been for the look in her eyes he might have laughed.

"I’m a whale," she murmured pitifully, her big blue eyes shining with tears as she looked slowly up at him. "I’m a cow. I’m carrying a beach ball inside of me. _Look_  at me, Daryl.” 

"I am, Beth." He crossed the room towards her without looking away and sank to his knees in front of her. "I’m looking right at you, an’ you know what I see?" 

As his hands came to rest on the swell of her belly, she drew in a deep breath and replied wetly, “W-what?” 

"I see the most gorgeous, beautiful woman ever. Who I _still_  can’t believe is my wife-” He pressed a kiss to her belly and hummed, “-and I _definitely_  can’t believe ever agreed to carry my baby.” 

She snorted, but there was a hint of a familiar smile on her lips now as she ran her fingers through his hair, “You’re just sayin’ that because you have to.” 

"Beth Dixon." He raised an eyebrow until she looked into his eyes and held his gaze. "When in my life have I ever said anythin’ I didn’t mean?" 

This time when she drew in a deep breath and exhaled, a far steadier and happier smile curved up her lips. “Never.” 

"That’s right, baby girl. So if I say you’re beautiful, then you’re beautiful. And if I say you’re the most gorgeous girl in the entire damn world well, then they might as well inscribe it somewhere, y’hear?" 

"Mhm." She nodded and wiped away a stray tear. "I hear." 

"Good. Now give me another pretty smile… there it is." He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her smiling lips as he spanned his hands across her belly. "Now, what are we gonna do about this shirt, hm?" 

They were supposed to go out with the Grimes’ tonight for dinner, but Daryl had a feeling Beth didn’t want to go like _this_. She’d yet to buy too many maternity clothes though, insisting first that her old clothes fit fine and then that she wasn’t gonna wear anything with ‘giant stupid bows’ across the front.

"It’s my favorite shirt-" She whispered, lip quivering again as she looked down at the pretty yellow blouse now straining to cover even half her belly.

"It’s your favorite shirt of _yours_ ,” Daryl remarked, an idea popping into his head. “But if I remember correctly…” He rose to his feet and turned to his drawers, rummaging through them until he triumphantly seized on a soft, worn button-down red flannel with the arms cut off. Turning, he held it out to her with a pleased hint of a smile. “You’ve got another favorite, don’t you?”

"Oh. _Daryl_. Can I?” 

He just smiled as he helped her to her feet and unbuttoned her blouse to set it aside on the bed. But when he stood behind her and slipped the flannel over her shoulders to settle it against her back, and his hands came around to start doing one button at a time, he pressed a kiss to her cheek and then looked at her in the mirror as he murmured, “Of course you can. What’s mine is yours, baby girl. Always.” 

(And when he did up the last button and ran his hands down over the curve of her belly, his lips found her ear and he whispered again, “Beautiful _.”_ She was, without a doubt. Especially when she was smiling at him like that and her little belly was just barely outlined by the worn flannel of _both_  their favorite shirt.) 

* * *

** PART THREE **

Fourteen hours of labor. Fourteen hours of pacing and grimacing and pushing and in the end, screaming, and Beth was exhausted. But through it all Daryl had been right at her side, looking at her like she was the strongest damn person he’d ever seen in his life, like all that mattered was the two of them.  


He was still there only now, it was the three of them. Beth was laying in bed with Daryl sitting up beside her, and in her arms between them lays the most perfect little baby Beth had ever seen in her life. “She’s an angel,” Beth whispered, pulling her gaze from the sweet-faced infant to look at Daryl for just a moment before she couldn’t resist the urge to glance back at their little one. Their daughter.

“She is,” Daryl murmured, his voice breathy with the same awe she could see on his face as he reached down and nudged his finger against the baby’s tiny hand until she curled her impossibly small fingers around his thumb.

Beth was pretty sure she heard him gasp, and the little intake of breath he gave was enough to have her turning back to him with a soft smile.

“Hey.” She waited until he turned to look up at her, and then gave him a soft smile. “Remember when we first met?” 

After a second, Daryl chuckled. “Course I do. Was this same hospital.” 

“Mhm. And remember what we bet on?”

“Mm.” Daryl nodded. “Whose niece or nephew was cuter.” 

“Yeah… well I changed my mind.” Daryl’s brow furrowed at Beth’s remark, and he hesitated a moment before raising one eyebrow in confusion. But all she did was giggle as she looked down at the baby in her arms and ran one finger lightly across the fluff of blonde hair on her head. Only then did she softly murmur, “She is without a doubt the cutest baby of all. She wins hand down.” 

When it clicked, all he did was chuckle and give a slow nod as his gaze followed hers back down to the little perfect baby in her arms. The perfect baby they’d somehow made. Together. More beautiful and angelic than anything he’d ever thought could come from Dixon blood and yet there she was. Real and adorable and perfect.

“Yeah, she is. Without a doubt. I’ll bet Glenn and Merle both on that.” 

Later he left his sleeping wife and their new baby girl in their room and headed back out to the waiting room where their whole family waited still. Annette, Hershel, Shawn, Maggie and Glenn, and Merle and his wife Destiny (still a shocker; the marriage itself, though not really the fact that of course he’d run off to Vegas to do it, leaving Daryl and Beth to watch their kid). Standing there with his hands in his pockets, Daryl just flashed them all a small smile and scuffed his foot on the ground as he shrugged his shoulders. “S’girl,” he remarked, smile widening a little more as they all began to cheer. “Namin’ her Penelope. Reckon we’ll call her Penny, though. Penny Dixon.” 

When they all got up and began to hug him and each other, Daryl somehow ended up with Merle’s arm slung around his shoulder as his brother laughed and teased him in congratulations, “Nicely done, little brother. When do I get a look at her?” 

“Later,” he replied gruffly, even as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone. “Beth’s sleepin’ now, both of ‘em are. Ain’t gonna wake ‘em. Here…” He flipped the screen until he got to the gallery and pulled up the picture he’d taken of his little baby girl, his and Beth’s baby girl, curled up in Beth’s arms as his tired but happy wife smiled up at him. 

“Damn,” Merle breathed out with a slow not. “Y’ ain’t done bad, baby brother. Not bad at all.” He hesitated and then dragged his arm tighter around Daryl’s shoulder before reaching to ruffle his hair. “Good thing she takes after you’re old lady and not you though.” 

“Hey!” Daryl pulled back with a light glare, but the smile was back on his lips the moment he looked back down at the photo. “Beth an’ I have already decided. She wins the cutest baby contest by a long shot.” 

In an instant both Merle and Glenn were groaning at him, but as they began to bicker back and forth about whose baby was really the cutest, all Daryl could do was smile to himself. Because he just had to look down at that picture to know the truth.

Penelope Dixon was the most beautiful, adorable, sweetest baby ever. He might have been terrified to be her father, but there was no way in hell he was gonna ever let her done.

(And he would totally fight to defend his baby girl’s title as the cutest baby ever. Although maybe not right now. The last thing he needed was Beth climbing out of bed after all those hours of labor just to hit him for starting a fight. Even if it was in defense of their sweet baby girl.)  



	9. Stitching Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl remembers Beth teaching him to sew. A prison/Alexandria one-shot.

**Title:** Stitching Up  
**Word Count:** 1363  
**Universe:** Canon Addition/Divergence  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Daryl recalls Beth teaching him how to sew.  
**Notes:** Inspired by [this photo of Daryl](http://thewalking-dead.sosugary.com/albums/userpics/10001/516_28129.jpg) and his stitched sleeves.

* * *

Daryl used to hover outside the doorway to her cell sometimes and just watch her. She had an ease about her no matter what she was doing; whether it was the way she lifted Judith into her arms and cradled her close, or the way she sang and hummed softly to herself while scribbling in her journal. **  
**

One of his favorite things to watch Beth do had been something incredibly simple: sewing. Besides caring for Judith and some of the other kids, one of the many tasks Beth took on (and there were far more than most people seemed to give her credit for) was helping to repair the group’s increasingly tattered collection of clothing. Every week she’d go down to the laundry or take a walk down the cell-block, collecting clothes with holes or ripped stitches and bringing them back to her cell to repair.

He’d lean up against the railing just outside or sometimes, if he were feeling bolder, he’d stand in her doorway for a bit, propping his frame against the metal bars and just watching her. It was soothing and oddly mesmerizing to follow the dip of that shining needle into the fabric, watching the thread appear and disappear as she knitted together tiny gaps and large rents, or cobbled together spare pieces to form something new and stronger.

(He wondered if she realized that she did that to the group, too. That in many ways she was that needle and thread, coaxing their troubles out of them and stitching them back up, knitting the group together again.) 

He brought her all his clothes on a separate day, after a while. He told her it was because he didn’t want to bother her by adding to the big pile, but the truth was he liked the chance to stand there and watch her work on his clothing alone, he liked the excuse to spend time in that cell, where the sweet smell of strawberries and baby powder seemed to linger and the air was more often filled with humming or soft sweet singing than the harsher cacophony that filled the rest of the prison. 

One day while he’d watched her stitching a pair of leather sleeves onto a flannel shirt for him, she’d looked up at him with those big blue eyes and asked simply, “Would you like to learn?” He’d grunted, but as if anticipating his argument she’d easily gone on, “It’s not too hard, and it’s a good thing to learn. Could come in handy when you’re out there on your own… you don’t wanna have to worry about a torn sleeve getting in your way, right?” 

When he hadn’t responded or pulled back, she’d shifted to perch on the edge of her little bed and patted the spot next to her. “Come here, I’ll show you. Like my Mama showed me, only I was much younger then.” It was her smile just then that drew him in more than anything else; soft and sweet and sad, pulling him in like a moth to a flame… or perhaps more like a bee to the sweetest nectar he’d ever known. 

He’d sat there side by side with her, feeling the warmth of her thigh against his own and the brush of her ponytail against his shoulder as she leaned over to shift the shirt into his lap and showed him slowly how to work the needle through leather and flannel, what pattern to take looping the thread in and out to hold it tightly together and then, after, how to tie it off as well.

For awhile after that, he would join her. Never anyone else’s clothes but sometimes his own. He’d sit there in her peaceful space, on the floor with his legs stretched out or sometimes, if he was ‘having trouble’ with a particular piece of clothing, he’d perch beside her on the bed. But they’d sew together, dipping needle into fabric, knitting together the pieces and closing the gaps as she chatted away or hummed to herself or sometimes, if he asked gruffly or looked at her a certain way, the soft sound of her singing. 

It became a thing that reminded him of her in a way that was both fond and melancholy. So many things did, in the days after he lost her. Sewing was a necessity but it was a thing she had taught him, and so it was impossible to stitch a tear in his clothing without remembering the sweetness of her voice or the delicacy of her fingers as she guided the needle in and out of the fabric.

It was also impossible not to remember the way those same hands and that same voice had stitched together the tears and wounds within him, piecing his broken heart back into a whole. He couldn’t help knowing that those wounds were the same ones torn back open when he’d lost her; the careful stitches ripped away in one swift, sharp moment, with an ache that even now still lingered. 

Daryl sat now on the front steps of the porch of a house too pristine and clean for him to feel comfortable sitting inside of, even now. Even outside he felt out of place, but at least he didn’t feel trapped, at least he didn’t feel like a mangy flea-bitten cur, ‘rescued’ and brought back to a home far too perfect for the likes of him.

In his lap he had another flannel shirt, and his tongue protruded carefully from the corner of his mouth as he dipped the needle into the edge of the leather sleeve, making slow stitches with the red thread to sew them together. 

He could hear her voice in his mind like it had been all that time ago, soft and close to his ear as she showed him with her delicate little hands how to work the needle into the heavy leather and keep the stitches tight and strong. 

“You’re not pulling it tight enough.” 

For just one moment, the words were in his head as well as his ears, and he almost wasn’t sure that they were real. But then he felt a warm weight behind him and those familiar small, delicate hands slipped over his shoulders and down across his chest. Kneeling on the porch behind him, Beth leaned forward over his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek as she peered down at the fabric in his lap. 

This wasn’t a memory, despite it having an almost dream-like quality to it. She was here. She was real, though this was a fact he had been continually reminding himself of every day since a week ago, when he’d found her in the woods on a run (like a vision in the middle of the woods with an unfamiliar man at her side) and brought her to Alexandria on the back of his bike. She was the same Beth he remembered with the same sweet voice and soft hands, but changed too, in ways that went deep into her core, far beyond just the addition of new scars to her delicate face.

“Your stitches are nice and even,” she murmured, reaching an arm out to run a finger across a bright red stitch, “but you have to pull them a bit tighter or that sleeve of yours will start drooping.” 

Daryl felt a smile tug just briefly at one corner of his lips before he hummed in agreement and began to draw the needle through again, this time pulling nice and tightly. 

Her lips pressed to his cheek, warm and real and not just a ghostly memory as she murmured, “Good thing you’ve got me here to help you, isn’t it?” 

Though his outward reply was nothing but a hum, it was far more on the inside. Because with each word he could feel those gaping holes within him being carefully sewn up again, knitted back together by her sweet voice and her reassuring warmth. _Alive_ , the needle sang as it worked it’s way not only through the worn flannel and thick leather, but also the fragile lining of his heart.

 _Alive_ , stitch, _alive_ , stitch, _alive_.


	10. The Unexpected Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People have been telling Beth since she was six that she'd end up married to Jimmy someday. It's just expected. So why, on the day of her wedding, does it feel so wrong?

**Title:** The Unexpected Road  
**Word Count:** 1938  
**Universe:** Non-Zombie AU  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** People have been telling Beth since she was six that she'd end up married to Jimmy someday. It's just expected. So why, on the day of her wedding, does it feel so wrong?  
**Notes:** I have a lot of feelings about girls and marriage, obviously...

* * *

There’s this thing about being a girl: getting married is expected. _Wanting_ to get married is expected. Is it any wonder, when it starts so young?  


You play house or play with dolls, cradling your sweet baby doll close as everyone jokes about you ‘practicing’ for when you have your own kids someday. You dress yourself up in oversized white shirts or your Mama’s discarded white sundress, so big on you that it hangs off one shoulder and trails on the ground as you clutch a bouquet of wildflowers in your hand and practice getting married, to your favorite teddybear or the herding dog, or eventually, to the boy you’re friends with. 

You’re so used to it, this expectation, that it seems normal when it turns from silly fun to serious talk. You giggle and laugh in high school, when relatives and family friends joke about your boyfriend, about high school sweethearts and true love and being together forever. You smile when they talk about how they met their husbands and wives in high school too, or how their parents did, or their parents parents. You duck your head and blush when they tease you about your boyfriend, because it’s just what’s expected of you, isn’t it? 

It’s expected that this teasing turn into serious questions, that you get “but when are you and that sweet boy going to get married” probably even more than you get “where are you going to college” or “what do you wanna be when you grow up?”. If you feel annoyance at being asked when he’s going to ‘pop the question’, it’s just because you don’t know when he will, right? It’s not because you don’t want him to. Because of course he will. It’s what’s expected. It’s what’s supposed to be.

People have been telling Beth Greene she’ll end up married to Jimmy Hensen since she was like six years old. So when he does pop the question, she says yes, because it’s expected, right? It just is. 

There’s another thing all tied up in this, in the questions people ask. After you say yes, people ask the same things: when is the wedding and have you picked a date yet and where will you have it and oh you two are just so perfect together, wouldn’t your mama be proud? And if you get flustered, well, blushing brides and all, right? 

There’s so many things no one asks. 

They don’t ask: Aren’t you too young to be getting married?

And they definitely don’t ask: Are you sure you _want_ to get married?

No. No one asks that, and why would they? You’re a girl and all your life you’ve dreamed of falling in love and getting married, raising a family in a perfect little home. It’s expected, and Beth Greene has always done what was expected.

(Except once. Just once. But no one talks about _that_ , not beyond sidelong glances at her wrists or worried mutterings when they think she’s not listening. That was a detour. A trip off the path that she’s since gotten right back on.) 

So no one asks the tougher questions. Not her friends, not her Daddy, and certainly not her older sister Maggie, who is too busy trying to plan the perfect wedding their Mama would have wanted to wonder if any of it is what _Beth_ wants. 

And when Beth seems a bit nervous and unsure, when she manages the night before her wedding to get across some tiny sliver of her nerves… well of course Maggie has an answer for it. 

It’s just wedding jitters, isn’t it sweet? All brides get them!

Alone in her room, Beth can’t help wondering if that’s true. Do all brides get jitters? Do they all feel a worry in the pit of their belly, or hear a voice whispering in the back of their mind: wrong, wrong, wrong. Do all brides lay in their beds crying at the thought of walking down the aisle the next day? 

But even as she cries herself to sleep in her childhood bed, Beth tells herself it’s normal. It’s just wedding jitters. It’s expected.

The unexpected doesn’t truly come until the day of her wedding, when she’s finally got a moment to herself alone. She’s standing in front of the long mirror in her bedroom. The corner of it is broken, as it has been since she was ten and threw her copy of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at it in a fit of anger. There are water spots on the mirror, too, and a hint of warping in the corner, but that isn’t why the reflection makes her so uncomfortable.

This mirror has seen so many versions of her. It has seen her in the over-sized yellow rain boots she’d worn obsessively for a month as a child. It had seen her from sundresses to jean shorts to pajamas to Halloween costumes. It had seen her in the simple black dress she’d put on as both armor and camouflage to attend the funeral of Shawn and her Mama, just as it had seen her in the clothes she’d come home from the hospital it, wan and with a thick new bandage on her wrist. 

It had seen her once, so long ago, in another white dress. It had belonged to her Mama and it had been so big that the sleeve of it had hung off one shoulder and the hem had trailed on the hardwood floors till it was dusty and frayed from snagging on the wood. She’d had a napkin pinned to her head and a ragged bunch of wildflowers in her hands and the irony was, she’d been on her way to ‘marry’ the same boy she was set to marry for real today. 

Jimmy Hensen. _Mrs Jimmy Hensen_. Beth… Hensen. 

It was what people had been expecting of her since she was six years old. Graduate high school, say yes to Jimmy, marry him, move in with him and have a nice little family, probably at least two perfect little blonde haired children. Be a wife, and a mother, and be happy with it.

_Beth Hensen_ The way it was supposed to be, right? The way she was _expected_ to be. 

But standing there looking at herself in the mirror, she knew it wasn’t right. She felt it in that moment, like a jolt of lightning right to her gut and spreading in a flash through every inch of her being. It didn’t matter if it was what was expected of her because she didn’t want it.

She really, truly, _desperately_ didn’t want it, in  a way that now crackled through her veins and lit her with an anxious sort of fire. 

Like a horse startled by the rumble of a storm in the distance, Beth spooked and ran. She ran right out of her bedroom door, down the front stairs and right out the front door without a thought for all the people gathered right now in the back yard.

She just _ran_.

She wasn’t thinking straight. About the running away, that she was clear, but about the _how_ of it, not so much. If she’d been thinking she would have hopped into Otis’s truck where he always left the keys in the engine. If she’d been thinking she might have even taken a horse, or tried to find Maggie’s boyfriend Glenn’s coat and borrowed the keys to his car.

But she wasn’t thinking about anything but getting away, which was how she ended up running down a gravel road, kicking up dust in her wake and staining the hem of her pristine white dress as her perfect pinned up curls began to unravel, wisps flying into her face. 

When she heard the rumbling of an engine behind her, she had one heart wrenching moment of panic. She was sure it was Maggie, sure her sister had saw her and was coming to scoop her up and drag her right back to her boring, expected destiny.

But when she turned, the person she saw was so far was Maggie it was a laughable relief. 

He was on a motorcycle, a fierce looking thing that rumbled so loud her ears almost ached. He had sunglasses shading his eyes and dark shaggy hair that streamed out behind him. His jeans were worn and ripped, and as he unexpectedly came to a stop just a few feet from her, Beth had just enough time to notice the white angel wings on the back of his leather vest,

Then he turned, lowered his sunglasses, and their eyes meet… and nothing about it was expected. In that moment she could see so much in his gaze. Confusion, annoyance, deliberation, even bewilderment perhaps at why he’d stopped at all… but also something else. Something warm, something so familiar that for a moment she finds herself on the brink of asking: _have we met before? Don’t I know you?_

Before she can ask, his gruff voice cuts into the silence, “Need a ride?” He looks almost bewildered at himself, as if he hadn’t at all planned on asking. She wouldn’t blame him. Who would think any good could come of picking up a girl in a wedding dress on an empty country road?

But he asked, and in the seconds before she answered, Beth could almost see the two paths stretched out in front of her. 

_Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,  
And sorry I could not travel both_

One was clear; she could hop on that bike and have him take her right back home. To her Daddy and her sister and Jimmy; to Mrs Hensen and a pretty little house and two perfect blonde-haired kids. 

The other though… the other was far less clear. The other involved her hopping on that bike and driving off to somewhere unknown. Wherever the road took her, wherever the bike took her, wherever this man…

“What’s your name?” 

“Daryl,” he said just as gruffly, “Dixon.”

Wherever Daryl Dixon took her. She mouthed his name, tasting not only the syllables of it on her tongue, not only that sense of familiarity once again, but the sweet and unexpected tang of possibility. Of the exciting, the unknown, the _unexpected_.

In one easy movement she was straddling the bike behind him, the pristine white skirt of her dress rucked up around her legs and her arms sliding around his waist as she said simply, “Beth Greene.” 

If he mouthed her name in any similar fashion as she had his, Beth didn’t see it. But she did see the look of curiosity in his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder and asked, “Where to?” 

And she definitely saw the hint of a smirk in his eyes as she breathed right back, “I don’t care. Anywhere but here.” That smirk was mirrored in her own smile a second later as she tightened her arms around his waist and added, “Take me somewhere  _unexpected_.” 

The engine rumbled beneath her thighs and as they drove, the wind worked it’s way through her hair until each neatly pinned curl was undone and streaming in waves behind her, and as she clung to the man in front of her, all Beth could do was laugh. 

Because there were no more expectations. It was just her, Daryl Dixon, and the wide open possibilities in front of them. She finally just felt _free_.

_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_  
_I took the one less traveled by,  
_ _And that has made all the difference._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was heavily influenced by my own feelings about my young wedding and subsequent divorce. So it's mostly Beth and less Bethyl, oops. I may do a second part to this though if people like it enough and want one.


	11. The Saga of Mister Moo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dixon brothers seem to have a proclivity for breaking into Beth Greene's apartment, but she knows just how to handle them.

**Title:** The Saga of Mister Moo  
**Word Count:** 2355  
**Universe:** Non-Zombie AU  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** The Dixon brothers seem to have a proclivity for breaking into Beth Greene's apartment, but she knows just how to handle them.  
**Notes:** This is in two parts, as I originally posted the first ficlet in response to a request, and then created a sequel! I hope you enjoy, these fics (especially the second part) make me laugh a lot.

* * *

  
Part One: Meet Mister Moo   
_(Daryl Dixon & Beth Greene)_   


Really all the banging around should have woken Beth up. It did, technically, she was just really slow to wake up in general, unless something drastic happened. Eventually she did wake; hair a mess around her head, eyes blinking blearily first into the darkness and then at the sounds coming from the living room.

Her eyes went wide and she reached out sharply to snap on her bedside lamp. The bedroom door was closed, but beyond beyond it she could hear scuffling noises, like someone was walking around in the dark or something and had no idea where they were.

Which was why she was pretty sure it wasn’t Maggie, unless her sister had gotten drunk… even then, Maggie was never quiet. _Especially_  not when she was drunk. If it were Maggie she’d be yelling for Beth, complaining about her furniture being in the way or something. No… it definitely wasn’t Maggie.

So when Beth climbed out of the bed in her pajamas, she took a moment to look around, searching for something to defend herself with. What would have been good was a bat, or some kind of stick, or heck even a knife. But no, of course she didn’t have any of those things. It had never seemed like a priority, of course, not until _now_.

All she had was a lot of clothes, a guitar she was _so_  not going to risk using as a weapon, and a very large stuffed cow.

Okay, so Mister Moo was probably not the best weapon but he was big, and hey, no one would expect a cow to the face… right? Right.

Clutching him by one leg, Beth inched her way to her bedroom door, drew in a deep breath, and pulled it slowly open. At first she saw nothing beyond, no movement in the darkness, not even as her eyes began to adjust. 

But then she heard it. Groaning and cursing from the room beyond, in a voice that was _so_  not at all familiar. With her phone out in the kitchen and no other options, Beth did the only thing she could think of.

She flipped on the light switch and ran into the room, Mister Moo upraised as she shouted, “I’M ARMED AND THE POLICE ARE ON THEIR WAY SO YOU’D BETTER-”

But what they’d better do, Beth didn’t get a chance to articulate. Because as soon as she saw her intruder, she came to a sudden stop. It was an unfamiliar man, in what she thought was a leather jacket over his torn jeans, long shaggy hair hanging into his eyes. He rightly should have terrified her… only it was hard to be terrified when he was sprawled out on his back on her couch, groaning as her yellow-haired cat Sunshine purred and pranced across his chest. 

“What are you _doing_?” It was the only thing she could think to ask, as she lowered the stuffed cow to her side.  


The stranger on her couch groaned. “Gettin’ attacked by your cat, Merle. Didn’t know you had a cat. When the hell’d you get a damn cat?”   


“I’m not Merle,” Beth said dryly, taking a cautious step towards him as Sunshine laid down, nudging her little pink nose under the man’s chin with a rumbling purr. “And that’s my cat, Sunshine.”  


“You ain’t Merle?” The man blinked his eyes open, leaving Beth stunned by the brilliant blue of them for a moment before he grumbled, “Then where the fuck am I?”   


Not daunted by his foul language, she raised an eyebrow and said, “My apartment. I’m pretty sure you broke in through my window, which better not be broken…”

“Ain’t broken,” he grunted, laying back against her pillow, “Jimmied it open.”  


“Oh well isn’t that lovely.” Beth looked down at him and sighed. “What am I supposed to do with you, hm?”   


“Dunno. What _are_  you gonna do with me?” He looked her over lazily this time, and she was surprised to realize that the little smirk he gave her made something all warm and fluttery unfurl inside of her, even as he fixed his gaze on her stuffed cow and said, “ _That_  what you meant by armed? You gonna hit me with that, girl?”

“His name is Mister Moo,” she replied primly, only flushing after the fact. _His name is Mister Moo_ , lord above Beth Greene, what are you doing. “And no, I’m not gonna hit you with him. Although it _would_  have caught you off guard.”  


When all he did was grunt in reply, Beth furrowed her brow and sniffed. “Well what I _should_  do is call the cops on you for breaking and entering.” 

That seemed to get his attention. He turned his head and looked up at her, fixing her with a gaze that seemed unexpectedly clear despite the fact that he reeked of alcohol. “That what you’re gonna do, little girl?” 

For a moment she just stood there, eyebrow arched, staring him down despite the fact that she was wearing pajamas pants with cats on them and clutching a stuffed cow in one hand. Only when he’d blinked and drawn back from the look in her eyes did she soften, and reply, “No. I’m not. But only because Sunshine likes you, Mr…” 

“Dixon,” he grunted, turning to look down at the cat. His gaze almost went cross-eyed at her nearness, but after a moment he lifted a hand and ran it down the cat’s back, and as she purred contentedly he added, “Daryl Dixon.”   


“Beth Greene,” she murmured back, despite the fact that she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to give your name to strange men who broke into your apartments.  


She was _also_  pretty sure you weren’t supposed to wish that those men would make you purr with their touch, too, which was why she firmly shoved that thought aside as she added, “I’m going to make you some coffee. Don’t get up, you’ll just dislodge Sunshine and keeping her happy is the least you can do after waking us both up!”

As she moved into the kitchen to start up a pot of coffee, Beth just tried not to think about all the ways he could make it up to _her_ , too.

Because that was definitely something she should _not_  be thinking about.

Even if her cat did like him.

* * *

  
Part Two: Don't Mess With Mister Moo   
_(Daryl Dixon, Beth Greene, and Merle Dixon)_   


_Thump._  


_Bang._

_Crash!_

“Daryl!” Beth sat bolt upright in bed, groping beside her, reaching out to shake the warm body of her… boyfriend? Lover? None of the words really applied when it came to her and Daryl. They were… together, that was the easiest way to put it. They were together, and these days he spent pretty much every night at her place; it was funny, she liked to joke, since it was the first place they’d met.

It had been six months since that night when he’d ‘accidentally’ broken into her apartment and nearly got a stuffed cow to the face for his troubles, only to be pardoned thanks to the affections of her cat, Sunshine. 

Six months, and now someone was banging around in her apartment again, only this time she knew it wasn’t Daryl because his warmth was right against her and his heavy arm was slung familiarly over her waist. It couldn’t be Sunshine, either, because she could feel the distinct warmth of the cat in her favorite spot curled up at the foot of the bed, a puddle of yellow fur only faintly visible in the gloom of her bedroom. 

“Daryl!” Beth nudged him again until he groaned. Once that little bit of wakefulness had penetrated, though, Daryl was awake and sitting up, possibly even more alert than she was. Six months with her, he claimed, had vastly improved how well he slept at night, but with a past like his it was no wonder how quick he was to wake up when needed. 

Before she could even explain what had woken her up there was another bang and crash from the living room. Just as Daryl curled his fingers protectively around her arm, they heard echoing through the closed bedroom door, “Sonofabitch table. You wanna start something? Ol’ Merle’ll give you what for, gettin’ in my way…” 

Instantly, Beth groaned. “I’m gonna _kill_ your brother.”

Daryl, looking like he was biting back a hint of a smirk, started to say, “I’ll go get him to settle-”

“Nope.” Beth was already pushing down her blankets and climbing out of bed. “This is the third time this _month_! You never should have told him how we met, now he thinks he can come over here every time he gets drunk and jimmy open the lock and sleep on our couch _and_ get pancakes in the morning.”

“To be fair, you don’t _have_ to make him pancakes,” Daryl remarked, raising an eyebrow as she turned to face him. 

“Daryl he is a _guest_. When you have guests in the morning, you make them _breakfast_. Even if they _are_ selfish louts who like to leer and make inappropriate comments and break people’s nice things.” Before Daryl could do more than rub his hand across his forehead, Beth cut in firmly, “And don’t say I should keep the breakable things up higher! Even _Sunshine_ can manage not to knock down every nice thing I own and she’s a _cat_. You know how much I loved that little porcelain bird he shattered the last time he broke in here. It was the first thing you ever got me…”

“I know, Beth, but-”

“But _nothing_. This is the last time he’s breaking in here like this and ruining our home!” And then, as if in emphasis (or perhaps just as an example of Merle’s really fucking horrible timing), there came another shattering crash from the living room.

Merle’s voice rose in a curse echoed by Beth’s own (albeit less foul) exclamations as she leaned over, snatched her stuffed cow from beside the bed, and stormed through the bedroom door dressed only in one of Daryl’s oversized t-shirts.

She stopped only long enough to flick on the light switch and Daryl, stumbling after her with a groan, reached the doorway just in time to find her stomping right up to her brother and whacking him in the arm with her cow. “Merle Dixon that is the last straw. Stop breaking into our home and stop _breaking_ all my nice things or I-” _Thump_. “-swear-” _Thump_. “-to-” _Thump_. “-god-” _Thump_.

“Damn woman, what the hell!” Merle pushed out with both hands, swaying in place as he tried to fend off the admittedly strong-armed attack. “The hell you hittin’ me for, sweet tits? Is that a stuffed animal? Fucking shit-”

“It’s a _cow_ -” _Thump_. “And his name is _Mister Moo_!” _Thump_. “And I’m hitting you because-” _Thump_. “You keep breaking my things!” 

Daryl let Beth get one more whack in with her cow before he came up behind her, slowly sliding one muscular arm around her waist and tugging her back. She didn’t fight _him_ , at least. Just exhaled in a sigh and leaned back into him, letting him hold her slender body back against his. Ignoring his brother standing there confused and clearly wasted, Daryl nuzzled into the crook of her neck, whispering reassurances until she calmed for him.

“I’m fine,” she murmured softly. “Honestly I am. But he broke my little blue bowl, Daryl. That was hand made! I got it at that first flea market we went to together, remember?”

“I remember, baby girl.” The nickname, usually intimately reserved for their private moments, got a snicker from Merle… although his brother stopped short the moment Beth raised her cow again, and then it was Daryl’s turn to chuckle as Merle took a step back, hands raised to ward off any other attacks. 

With Daryl’s arm still around her waist, Beth settled with a drawn-out sigh and a shake of her head. When he was confident he wasn’t gonna get hit again, Merle slowly lowered his hands to peer blearily at Beth and Daryl both. “Y’ want me to leave, then?”

“No,” Beth said with another sigh.

“But you gotta stop doin’ this, Merle.” Daryl shook his head at his brother and the mess he’d left, from the open window to the shattered bowl on the ground. “We gotta find some other solution.”

“I’ve already thought of something.” Beth’s exasperated words caught both brothers by surprise, but not for long. As she went on in a no-nonsense tone, Daryl’s surprise settled into fondness, though the wide-eyed look on Merle’s face remained. “We’ll get you a key made tomorrow, Merle, and I’m gonna put the lights on a sensor. I already talked to the landlord. They’ll come on when you come in so you can find your way to the couch, and then turn off once you pass out, alright? Just _try_ to lock the door or at least shut it after you come inside. You think you can do that?” 

Almost comically stunned, all Merle seemed able to do was nod his head, even as he stepped back and thumped his scrawny ass down onto their couch. “Alright, sweet tits.”

“And no more calling me sweet tits!” She explained more firmly, pointing at him with the hand that clutched Mister Moo, the sight of which had him freezing instantly. “And tomorrow, you clean up the mess you made, you hear? After you do, I’ll make you pancakes, but _don’t_ expect to get chocolate chips. Frankly, you don’t deserve them.”

And with that, chin thrust out and nose turned up, Beth untangled herself from Daryl’s arms and strode determinedly back to their bedroom. 

It was left to Daryl to close the open window, but as he latched it shut and headed right after her, he heard Merle remark lowly, “You know what? I like that girl. She’s got fire.” 

All he could do was grin. Well, and be glad that he hadn’t provoked her attack that first night he’d stumbled in here drunk.

Cause yeah, his girl had fire... but she also had a _really_ strong arm.


	12. Beth Greene and the Butt-Faced Blue Truck Jerk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a silly one. Can't you tell by the title?

**Title:** Beth Greene and the Butt-Faced Blue Truck Jerk  
**Word Count:** 1826  
**Universe:** Non-Zombie AU.  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Beth Greene had the perfect parking spot, that is, until the butt-faced blue truck jerk stole it. Unable to take it anymore, she decides to write him a strongly worded letter, only to find out that uh oh, butt-faced blue truck jerk is, well, not quite so butt-faced. And also Daryl Dixon.  
**Notes:** Inspired by a prompt from Connor.  <3

* * *

She tried to be calm about it. She tried to be understanding and polite and magnanimous. She tried to do like her Daddy always told her and treat others as she’d want to be treated.

But after she got caught in the middle of a rainstorm and had to park all the way on the far end of the lot _and_ run through the rain until she and all her bags of groceries were soaking wet, just because this _jerk_ kept parking in her spot? Well, enough was enough.

Never mind that maybe _technically_ they didn’t have assigned spots in her apartment building. They might as well have, because everyone always parked in the same spot! Beth’s had always been the corner spot, the _perfect_ spot, right by her front door so she didn’t get wet and didn’t have to carry any of her bags and packages too far. It was under the shade of the building so it didn’t get too hot during the day, but not under the trees where it might get covered in pollen or flower petals or other tree detris. It had been _hers_.

Until, of course, butt-faced blue truck jerk moved in.

Okay granted she wasn’t sure he actually had a butt face. She’d never actually seen him except once from behind and from far away. But she was pretty sure he had a butt face because only a butt-faced jerk would steal a nice girl’s parking spot, right?

Right.

And now she’d finally worked up the nerve to tell him. Not in person, of course… she didn’t want to risk him being an _angry_ butt-faced jerk. But she’d sat down and written him a very _sternly worded letter_ and she was sure that once he’d read it, well, he’d just knock it right off and stop parking in her spot!

Of course he had to read it first. Which was how Beth ended up slipping out of her front door once the rain had passed and, after looking around to make sure the coast was clear, crossing the walkway over to _her_ spot to lean up on her toes and slip the folded up note under his windshield wiper.

 _Perfect_.

Only apparently, she hadn’t looked around as well as she should have, because as soon as she turned she was faced with what appeared to be a wall of chest. She stepped back, eyes skimming upwards over the broad body that was doing a very nice job of filling out a flannel sleeveless shirt, right up to…. _oh_.

Oh no.

Okay, there was a definite problem now, and it was one she’d totally not considered up until this very moment.

Blue truck jerk was, in fact, _not_ a butt-face. Not one bit.

In fact he was a very handsome jerk, with lanky brown hair that hung into his eyes and a scruffy beard that only somewhat covered his strong jaw and oh god, his eyes were so blue and piercing and yep, he was staring right at her. 

“Um.” 

Blue car jerk’s eyebrow raised as he folded his (very muscled) arms over his chest. “Can I help you?”

“Uh…” _Think, Beth, think! Stop looking at his chest! Remember… your car! And your spot! And the rainstorm that soaked half your groceries, and-_ “Yeah! Yeah I- I just wanted you to know that I’m very upset with you!”

If possible, the man’s eyebrow only raised further, and she was pretty sure an amused smirk flitted across his lips as he peered down at her. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah!” She squared her shoulders and then, for added effect, leaned up on her toes to make herself as tall as she possibly could be. “Yeah, I am. Because _you_ keep parking in _my_ spot! And I’m very upset about it.” 

Despite her attempts to make herself appear more forceful and, well, taller, the man still seemed nothing but amused as he watched her standing there in front of her. After a moment, he drawled, “Wasn’t aware we had no assigned spots…”

“Well… we don’t. _Technically_.” Okay so that was a sticking point but still! She was still in the right, she totally was! Furrowing her brow she straightened her shoulders again and went on, “But everyone always parks in the spots closest to their apartments, and this one is right in front of mine. I _always_ parked here, before you showed up! It’s the perfect spot, right in the shade and…”

“Not under the trees, so y’ don’t get none of them pollen things or bird shit all over your car?”

“… Yeah. Exactly.” His response caught her off guard, and instead of remembering to be angry, Beth found herself distracted by the little smirk on his lips and the way his eyes seemed even bluer now with the sun hitting them just right and… “Hey! You stop that.” 

“Stop what?” Now he looked both confused _and_ amused, looking her up and down as if he didn’t understand just what the diminutive little girl in front of him wanted. 

“Stop smirking like that, it’s distracting!” The words burst out of her lips before she could stop herself and oh god, now she was blushing and he was only smirking more, _laughing_ really, and this was just _so not fair_ because she was supposed to be mad! She was mad! She was so totally still mad! “I’m still upset with you! I had to park all the way at the end of the lot today and all my grocery bags got all wet and the paper soaked through and one of them broke and I lost like half of the things I bought because they got all smushed falling to the ground and- now what?”

She cut off at the way he was looking at her, his expression somehow softened and concerned. “M’sorry, that’s all. Didn’t mean to get in your way or somethin’. Didn’t even know there was no unspoken rule or nothin’, about the spots. Real sorry ‘bout your groceries, too…”

Totally flustered now, Beth didn’t know what to say or do, except to stammer a bit and run her hands awkwardly through her hair until he spoke up again, “Look, maybe we could share the spot, or somethin’? You know, split days so you always have it on your shoppin’ day, or whatever? I would offer to move entirely but well… it’s the perfect spot for my apartment, too, when I have things to carry…”

And to Beth’s surprise, he pointed to the apartment to the right of hers, just past the edge of the parking lot… aka, the door that didn’t have a spot in front of it, thus making _her_ spot the closest. Also, the apartment she would _totally_ have known was his if she’d paid any attention and made the connection between ‘quiet new neighbor’ and ‘butt-faced blue truck jerk’. 

“Oh.” Beth blinked a minute and then caught herself at the hint of amusement that flashed across her face again. Boldly, she shot back, “What, you wanna arrange custody of the spot?” A smile flitted across her face, and she didn’t fail to notice the shifting interest in his expression at that, either. “Plan out shared custody, and all?”

“Maybe I do.” He uncrossed his arms from his chest and instead leaned to his side, pressing his hip against his truck as he watched her. “I mean unless you’re so upset you wanna go off on me again.” 

“Maybe I am.” She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms over her chest, even as a smile played across her lips. “Or maybe I’m just thinking that, you know… a custody agreement like that might take some communication. Some arranging, you know?”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm. Maybe the kind of arranging that’s best done over, or, I dunno… a cup of coffee?” She hesitated just a second and then gave him a sweet smile and a pretty tilt of her head, bold even as her cheeks flushed pink. “I mean, if you want to. I could go back to shoutin’ at you, if you’d rather…”

“I dunno,” he remarked in that same slow, gruff drawl, eying her up and down before teasing, “You’re pretty amusing when you get all worked up…” Just as she opened her mouth to protest, though, he added, “You get all flushed and your eyes get just the prettiest damn blue…” 

_Oh_.

And now they both looked flustered, both looked a little flushed, both stood there for just a moment in awkward silence until a smile curved up Beth’s lips and was matched by his in return. 

“As much as I like the sound of that… I think I’m leaning towards coffee. If you’re game, Mr…?”

“Dixon. Daryl Dixon.” He pushed off the truck and slowly stood up straight, looking her over one last time before he added softly, “And yeah, I reckon I am. After all, it’s like you said. We need some time to do our negotiatin’, Miss…?”

“Beth Greene.” She grinned, and suddenly it didn’t matter that her groceries were squished or that her socks and shoes were soaked and probably wouldn’t be dry for days. “I know a coffee place down the street… if you’re free now…”

“I reckon I am.”

“Good. And just- oh!” Suddenly spotting the square of paper from the corner of her eye, Beth leaned forward and quickly snatched it from under the wiper to slip it into her pocket. “No, uh… no need for you to read that!”

“Oh come on.” He was teasing her again, she could tell now. “You came down here so decisively, I watched you. Sure you don’t want me to read your angry letter?”

“It was _not_ an angry letter, it was a _sternly worded letter_ and no, you really don’t need to read it. Honestly!” Beth turned away, gesturing for him to follow her as she headed towards the street.

But even as she did he came up beside her, arm nudging hers as he teased, “Oh right, a sternly worded letter, my mistake. You know, that only makes me wanna read it more…”

“Knock it off!”

“Just don’t reckon anyone has ever written me no _sternly worded letter_ before…”

“Hey, keep that up and I’m gonna factor this into the negotiations!” She shot him a sideways grin and let her arm brush back against his. “There are seven days in a week, you know, one of us is gonna get an extra day…”

“If I fight you for it, you gonna get all flushed and worked up again?”

“Daryl!”

Even as she scolded him she laughed, and in the end, she was kinda glad she’d stepped out of her box and _not_ done the polite and magnanimous thing for once.

(She was actually almost even glad he’d parked in her spot. Almost. It was still _her_ spot after all, no matter how many times he gave her that seriously attractive smirk…)  



	13. Grown Up Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beth and Daryl are playing some 'grown up games" when they get interrupted...

**Title:** Grown Up Games  
**Word Count:** 1960  
**Universe:** Non-Zombie AU.  
**Rating:** MATURE (adult/nsfw)  
**Brief Summary:** Beth and Daryl are playing some 'grown up games' in bed late one night, when they get interrupted by their daughter...  
**Notes:** Inspired by Abelina!

* * *

Beth’s legs rested over his shoulders, the gap between them allowing the sheet to dip between them so that the soft fabric slid against his back and mussed his long, tousled hair. The air was cool thanks to their quietly rumbling air conditioner, and only light in their bedroom was Beth’s bedside lamp, the dim light of it filtering through the pale blue sheets. But Daryl barely noticed his surroundings, and not just because he was hidden under the blanket. His true focus was on Beth’s creamy, pale thighs, which were parted in front of him to offer up the slick pink folds that he had wasted no time in tasting. 

He’d only been under here a couple minutes, but already his scruffy beard was slick with her juices and she was squirming and panting above him in bed. Despite the tempting sound of her breathy voice, he didn’t give in to her whimpering pleas. He just kept devouring her, his big, work-roughened hands curled around her hips to hold her firmly to his mouth despite her attempts to arch and buck with pleasure. Laying on his stomach down towards the end of the bed, his hard cock throbbed where it was pinned against the mattress, but he easily ignored it in favor of Beth. After all, there was nothing more pleasurable to him than making _her_ feel good.

He was caught up in her; the scent of her, the taste of her on his tongue, the sounds of her breathy gasps and moans spilling free to fill the air in their bedroom. His mind was a haze that nothing could penetrate except for her… 

… and apparently, the sound of a small voice coming from the side of the bed, sleepy and sweet as it cut into Beth’s breathy sounds, “Mommy? What is Daddy doin’ under th’ covers like that?” 

Really, they only had themselves to blame. He wished he could say he’d pointed out the issue with their bedroom door and that Beth had told him not to worry about it, because at least then he’d feel slightly less guilty. But the truth was, Daryl and Beth had both just completely forgotten that the lock on their bedroom door was broken. It probably wasn’t surprising, all things considered. After five years of marriage, his brain still got all hazy when he was just standing with her, let alone when they were stumbling down the hallway together, trying to make it to their room without letting each other go or even pulling their lips apart.

Of course this had all been started by Beth whispering in his ear that their daughter was asleep for the night, but clearly she hadn’t _stayed_ asleep. Because that was without a doubt her voice coming from the other side of the sheets. As he froze there, head still between Beth’s thighs and a flush burning the tips of his ears, he could just picture her standing at the side of the bed; barefoot and clad in her purple pajamas, her dark-blonde hair in the little braids Beth always put it in before bed, her tiny hands clutching her favorite teddy bear close. 

She was four years old now, sweet like her Mama and often quiet like him, but precocious and clever and curious in some combination of the both of them. He should have known she’d find her way in here somehow, hadn’t she done it several times since the lock on the door had broken? Granted that had always been later in the night while they were _sleeping_ , not while they were, well… doing _this_.

Still laying on the bed between his wife’s legs, Daryl knew he couldn’t get up. He was too embarrassed for starters, the burn of his ears sending a flush down the back of his neck, and besides, if he got up he’d have to lift the sheet probably, and they were _definitely_ in a compromising position under the sheets. Getting up now would only make things worse, but unfortunately that meant he was stuck here under the sheets, cheek pressed to Beth’s thigh as he prayed their kid wouldn’t try and climb up on the bed with them. 

Above him, Beth somehow sounded completely calm as she replied, “Daddy and Mommy are just playing a game, Annie, that’s all.”

“A game?”

“Yes, sweetie. A grown-up game.” There was a pause, during which he imagined their intelligent daughter giving that thought some consideration. She must have nodded, or done something in response, because after a second Beth spoke again, “You should be in bed, sweet pea. Do you need Mama to bring you back and tuck you in?”

“No Mama, I’m okay. I wen’ to get water but I heard you an’ I thought maybe you was havin’ a ni-mare!” 

“Aww, no, Mama is okay sweet pea, I promise. Do you think you can tuck yourself back into bed now like a big girl?”

“Uh huh, I can! Ni-ni, Mama. Ni-ni, Daddy!”

From under the sheet, Daryl croaked out a goodnight to his little girl as Beth called back far more brightly above him, but he didn’t move an inch until he heard the door click shut beside him. From above him, Beth tugged at the sheet and teased, “You can come out from hiding now, Mr. Dixon…”

“ _Beth_...” But he’d only just gotten the exasperated grunt of her name out when she burst into giggles above him, Pulling off the sheet, Daryl sat up between his legs and looked up at his wife. She was lying back on the bed, the top of the sheet clutched to her chest and her hair a mess around her head, just _laughing_ , as if she couldn’t stop herself. Again and again, the giggles spilling out of her and only intensifying as he sat up, kneeling between her legs and wiping his mouth as he looked down at her.

“Oh lord-” She gasped out between giggles, “Oh god, that was so- Oh _lord_ , Daryl!”

“I’m fixing the lock on that damn door,” he growled, shifting out from between her legs to move next to her. She was still laughing, and it took several firm nudges before she moved over enough to make room for him, allowing him to lay down beside her. As she continued to dissolve into giggles (which despite the still-hot tips of his ears was as adorable as always), he lay on his side and looked down at her in amusement. Brushing his hand over the flat of her stomach, he found his embarrassment receding as he teased lowly, “Grown-up games, huh?” 

“Well, what was I supposed to say?” She turned her head towards him, grinning in between little breathy giggles, a dreamy vision with her pink lips still swollen from kisses and her cheeks flushed from both lingering desire and the embarrassment of the interruption. “I mean, you were frozen down there between my legs, and she was staring all expectantly at me… it was the first thing that came to my mind!”

“Better’n anythin’ I had.” His fingers skimmed over her smooth skin as he drank in the sight of her, any awkwardness he’d felt fading away as it always did when he was around her. God, she was gorgeous. It didn’t matter how long they’d been together, every day he was amazed that she was his girl; that he woke up next to her every day, that at any moment he could look and see the glint of her wedding rings, or the curve of her lips in what he called her ‘Daryl smile’. “Dunno if I’d call what we were doin’ _games_ , though.”

“No? You mean you weren’t playing adult hide-and-seek between my legs?”

“Beth...”

“We weren’t about to _wrestle_  a bit, on the bed?” 

He snorted out a laugh, fingers stuttering briefly against her skin before they dipped into her navel and smoothed out over her belly again. “You’re somethin’ else, you know that?” 

“Mhm, I am. For one, I’m an expert at grownup,  in-bed _Twister_.” 

As low laughter rumbled low in his chest, he thought back to this morning when it had been Beth slipping under the covers, kneeling between his legs and wrapping her lips around him… Memories of the moment clouding his mind, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “Grown-up…. bubble _blowing_?”

“Daryl!” There she went, dissolving into giggles again, but her face lit up with delight. As she laughed, she turned onto her side to face him, shifting closer in their bed as she ran her hand up his chest. “Grown-up _hand_  games. Minus the clapping, of course…”

“Grown-up _Candyland_ ,” he growled out, hand gliding up her side to palm the soft curve of her breast. 

“Candyland? _Ohhh_... Yeah, you’re pretty good at getting over _Gum Drop Mountain_ ,” Beth replied, voice breathier as she arched her back, thrusting her breast against his palm before she gasped out, “Adult Duck, Duck, _Goose_.” 

The last word was punctuated by her hand sliding around to grip his ass, making him groan into the crook of her neck before he nibbled at the sweet flesh there. “Grown-up _Peek-a-Boo_...”

“Think that’s called stripping.” The words filled him with another memory; Beth standing by the window as the sunlight streamed in, pulling up her dress to reveal the delicate curve of her bare back and the flare of her womanly hips. As his hand gently squeezed her breast, she gave a soft moan and a hum, her hand slipping to his hip now to tug him closer. “Mmm, dirty _Simon Says_.” 

How about grown-up _playing catch_?”

“Anything involving _balls_ , honestly.” 

“Hey, as long as it ain’t grown-up _solitaire_ , I’m all for it...” Daryl kissed across her neck and caught her lips with his own as he gently guided her onto her back once more, allowing her hair to spill out around her head in a sunshine halo. Pulling the sheets over them, he shifted between her legs once more and lay over her, covering her body with his own. She felt so small beneath him, tiny and soft and arching up into him with a sigh against his lips as she wrapped her legs loosely around his waist. 

He was hard again, and growing harder by the moment as he brushed his lips over hers and rocked his hips forward to slide through her slick folds. But as her hands splayed against his back, he murmured against her lips, “Still need t’ fix that broken lock, though…”

Beneath him Beth just hummed, and with a shift of her hips he felt her line their bodies up just right.  All it took was him pressing down and her arching up at the same moment for him to begin sliding into her tight heat. He groaned at the feeling of her slick around the head of his cock, just as she whispered back against his lips, “Tomorrow. We can fix the lock tomorrow.” 

It didn’t matter how many times they made love, it felt like coming home every time they came together like this. As she arched her hips with a whine to let him sink inch by inch deeper inside of her, Beth looked up at him with a slow smile, and murmured, “Right now, I wanna play a grown-up treasure hunt.” He shook his head, even as she kept on teasing, “C’mon, Daryl.” She crossed her legs over his back, and added, “X marks the spot…”

When she dissolved into giggles this time, he just leaned in and caught her laughter against his lips. But he made sure, of course, to drive his hips down harder ( _X marks the spot_ ) and pin her to the bed beneath him. After all, he did love their grown-up games.  



	14. Caught (in a Closet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While on a run, Daryl and Beth get caught in a house filled with walkers. When Daryl pulls the pair of them through the nearest door, the plan was to hide. The plan was _not_ to get stuck in a closet so small that they end up so close together they can barely move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been having so much trouble with my writer's block lately. I was hoping if I pull out and post some old ficlets I never posted here, it might inspire me a bit. Either way, I'll feel less guilty about never posting anymore.

**Title:** Caught (in a Closet)  
**Word Count:** 1217  
**Universe:** Canon (between Alone/Still).  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Stuck in a house of walkers, Daryl tugs them through the nearest door and into safety... which also happens to be a very small closet that leaves Beth pressed right against him.  
**Notes:** If I remember correctly, I originally intended this to be something more smutty but as always, it ended up being something more emotional.

* * *

He has just enough time to hear their shuffle of their feet from the other room, mingling with low grunts and growls. By now he can number them in his head the way he used to be able to pick out how many people were in another room from the sounds of their voices and the heft of footsteps. Five, six, seven walkers maybe more, all headed their way.

Beth's head had just begun to turn and her lips to part when he slides his hand over her mouth and pulls her back against his chest. She freezes like a doe caught in the sights of a hunter's bow but only for a moment. That tension eases away, soothed by her trust in him, allowing him to draw her slowly backwards to the nearest door. He doesn't care what room is behind that damn door as long as it's not more walkers.

At least that's what he thinks until he draws her back through it and shuts the door with the softest 'snick' of the latch only to realize that what they've stepped back into isn't a room at all. It's a closet.

He's stuck with Beth Greene in a space so small that he wonders how it even contains both their heartbeats, if it has enough air to fill their two sets of lungs, let alone if they can even move.

But she tries. Slowly and quietly, because he's trained her well these last few weeks. Her feet don't make a sound as she turns and so the walkers might not hear her through the door but Daryl is acutely aware of every little movement she makes. His nose is full of the scent of cherries, lingering from that half-empty bottle of shampoo she'd found on a run last week. He can feel the slide of her ass and then her hips against him as she turns, the warmth of her hands braced against his chest as she settles and then the hint of her breath across his neck as she tips her head back to look up at him.

He holds a finger to his lips and listens to the sounds beyond as if by focusing on them he can ignore the fact that her slender body is fitted right up against hers as if those soft curves were designed by nature to mold against his. He listens for shuffling feet and low groans and tries to deny that there is a stirring within him, heat licking inside him and curling through his veins until his breath becomes just faintly shorter. 

When he hears nothing, Daryl whispers, "Gotta wait. Might move past, give us a chance to make for the door." If this doesn't kill him first. If he doesn't die with the scent of cherries in his nose and the heat of her body enough to make him feel the itch of friction beneath his skin. 

She says okay even as her hands slide down his chest and around his back. Her head settles against him, cheek to chest, and he breathes out lowly, "What're you doing, girl?"

"Getting comfortable." 

He'd laugh, if he didn't have to be quiet. Cause he's the last thing from comfortable right now. Or maybe he's the most comfortable he's ever been, it's hard to tell. There's fire in his veins like _need_ , urging him to let his hands find the small of her back and pull her closer, coaxing him into dipping his head and brushing lips down her neck to discover if she tasted as sweet as the cherry scent of her hair. 

Yet there's a part of him that has never felt better. They've been on the run from the prison for weeks, never stopping more than a few days. They've let behind not only family and friends but walls and beds and the comforts of what had slowly become home and yet... And yet there is a part of him that feels more at ease striding through the woods with her at his side than he ever did back there and he knows that it's not just the woods.  


It's her. It's her sweet smile and the way she hums sometimes when she walks. It's the way she settles his bow into her arms like it's an honor just to touch it, but when she fires it she looks like a goddess who strides through the woods as if they are her own.

It's the memory of the crackling flames as they burned the house down together, flames lighting up the old skeletal bones of the home and his past as the girl beside him thrust her middle finger up to the sky. 

There is a part of him each day that feels them changing. Not feral, but maybe wild. Like maybe they will stride into the depths of the forest side by side one day and never come out again. And in the woods beneath the canopies of the trees with nothing but their own strengths to sustain them, it will be good. It will be _right_.

He feels that sense of rightness now as steady as her heart beating against his chest and matching the rhythm of his own. He feels it as his hands slowly lift to find her back and span it, mimicking the splay of white wings across his own back. The closet is dark and she is closer to him than he's ever comfortably been to another person before and yet this, too, feels right.

It feels like home, in a way he never felt in the prison or on the farm and certainly never any time before that. Home isn't a place for him, it never has been. Home now is this. It's the scent of cherries and the rise and fall of her back beneath his hands as she takes in deep breaths. It's the warmth of her body against his own, it's the softness of her curves fitting as perfectly against him as her muscles, harder and firmer now after their time on the run.

Home is her tipping her head back again to look up at him in the darkness. It's the hint of the curve of her jaw etched into the gloom, and the gentle parting of her lips as she breathes out his name like a question, or a request, or maybe even a prayer. 

Home is the warmth of her lips against his when he closes the gap between them and leans in to kiss her. It is the taste of her on his tongue and the sigh she breathes between his lips.

And it is the way she smiles and nods when he pulls back and whispers that tomorrow, they'll head back into the woods. They'll go deeper. 

Maybe it will feel even more right there in the depths of the forest. The last man standing and the last woman at his side; the hunter and the goddess.

(If she is a goddess, a huntress of the woods, than he has long since been ensnared. He is caught and held, but he has no desire to break free.) 

Wherever he goes, it doesn't matter. He will find home with her at his side, because that's what she is. 

Home.

Right.

 _Everything_.


	15. He Remembers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daryl remembers Beth, not as she was the day she died, but as she will always shine, bright in his mind, full of hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really a very small ficlet, but since its the first thing I've written in like 6 months, I wanted to post it here and not just on tumblr. Warning in advance, this is a "Daryl mourning Beth" ficlet. It's probably not very happy for most people.

**Title:** He Remembers  
**Word Count:** 551  
**Universe:** Canon (S5B/S6, it doesn't matter)  
**Rating:** General  
**Brief Summary:** Daryl remembers Beth, not as she was the day she died, but as she will always shine, bright in his mind, full of hope.  
**Notes:** This is about mourning, I guess. I mean, within the story, but also for me in writing it.

* * *

He thought that the day he lost her would be forever seared into his mind. That when he thought of her, those would be the only images he recalled, the only ones that clung to his mind like prickly briers, impossible to discharge, a constant loop of a ringing gun shot and a blur of blonde hair and blood and the slow fall of her body to the ground.

And yet.

_And yet._

And yet, when he remembers her, it is never like that. Perhaps some part of his mind rejects those images even now, as he rejected it then: _Can’t be happening, can’t be real, not her, not after all this, not Beth._ It wouldn’t surprise him. He’s always been good at pushing down the dark and painful memories that have built up to create much of his life. 

Or perhaps, somehow, it is because of her. Perhaps she was so good, so pure, so damn fucking sweet and shining bright, that it’s impossible for his memories of her to be anything other than good. 

(Perhaps somehow, it is literally her, holding back the memories the same way she did when she was alive, clinging like some kind of damn tiny limpet to his back as if she could hug him tight enough to chase the darkness away.)

When Daryl remembers Beth, he remembers her glowing, lit by firelight that makes her blonde hair shimmer gold and her big blue eyes seem even warmer. He sees her eyes bright with tears, voice trembling as she speaks her doubts-- _I wish I could change_ \-- having no idea that to him, her ability to feel and hope and long for things, makes her the bravest person he has ever known. 

He remembers her tremulous smile, her little soft, bell-like laugh and the way it resonated through him and continues to do so even now, every time he allows himself to sink into that memory. 

He remembers her silly, drunken, daring words: _We should burn it down._

He remembers the blaze of fire, the heat that didn’t just radiate from the house they’d destroyed but built low within him to warm him to his core in a way nothing ever had before, let alone since. 

He remembers the way she looked later, lit by a softer flame, lips parted in surprise and big eyes wide as she breathed out a single word both intrinsically simple and impossibly complex all at once: 

 _Oh_.  


He remembers, he remembers, he remembers.

He thinks it will kill him, the remembering. Thinks it will break him to remember her, to remember what was lost not only by him, but by the whole world, when she was torn from it.

But it doesn’t kill him, somehow. Instead, against what feels like all odds, it sustains him. Like a tiny flicker of warmth inside of him, urging him on, reminding him to keep on living, to keep on trying, to keep on believing.

He figures different people have different names for that feeling. Hope, belief, faith. He ain’t sure he believes in any of those things. But he believes in her. 

So it probably isn’t surprising, that when he thinks of that feeling, he names it simply Beth. 

And he continues not only to remember, but to live. For her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If it makes it better, you can technically imagine she's still alive and he finds her/she finds him later, after this.)


End file.
